Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/172



ON ABRAHAN'S father had built that house as the houses of men of consequence in his native country, who had daughters and dignities to guard and cherish, had built theirs since time of old. Daughters and the dignity of houses too often fall together, especially in a country where men are not to be trusted alone with women, except where bars divide them. Don Abrahan's father had set strong bars into the oak sills of the windows opening upon the patio, perhaps not so much in the belief that the women of his household were weak, as in his knowledge that the men of his nation were vile.

Don Abrahan's sisters had watched the moon through these bars; his daughters had sent their longings winging away to lovers' hearts between them. Helena Sprague, prisoner in the republic's name, under charge of a heavy crime, occupied an apartment looking upon this patio, into which many ladies had sighed.

In her room there were two windows in a little projecting balcony, a sort of stage box for witnessing the drama of adoration, somewhat higher from the ground than a tall cavalier's head. A lady might reach down her hand to be kissed by one on