Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/174

 lota thought, smiling comfortably and knowingly to herself. Youth did not understand that discipline, to be effective, to result in healthful regeneration, must inflict its pain. And this was only discipline, applied for the purpose of setting Helena's feet in the way of their duty again. Don Abrahan had told her that.

Through the connecting doorway Doña Carlota looked at the girl, her smile fat as a Benedictine friar's, a certain softness of affection in her eyes. Doña Carlota caressed the tidy slenderness of Helena's body with her affectionate glance, as if she had a half-formed notion of going over and caressing the long braid of hair that swung like a lissom vine down her back, swaying when she moved restlessly from time to time, her hand on the window-sill. That was a strong hand for a girl, Doña Carlota thought, one with the power of the Yankee captain in it, one that might well open the casement and tear out the restraining bars.

Helena was paler than youth should be, thought Doña Carlota. A little color out of a box spread artfully on the cheeks, a little darkening under the eyes in the cunning way the girls of her own youth knew so well to enhance the wistfulness of those bright gems. Yet, without the color Helena was pleasant to the eye, warm-feeling to look upon, a sense of satisfaction in the complete fineness of her face and form.

Helena was linda. There is no English word exactly for linda, which is more than pretty, not yet