Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/80

 awake as customarily. They sat at card games under the trees, or talked in close and confidential groups. That day many a match was arranged for sons and daughters among the heads of illustrious families in that land.

There were mamas sufficient, not under the lethargy of much bull's head and wine, to keep decorum according to the standards of Spanish tradition among the young men and women. These young ones were dancing in Don Abrahan's great, cool hall. Henderson's not altogether enviable office during this diversion was to stand by holding his young master's cape, hat and cigarettes. No other caballero had a valet to attend him in such close relation as Roberto. This distinction alone would have been one affording great pleasure to the vain, shallow young man. The fact that Henderson was a foreigner, of a race at once proud and barbarous, added much to the pride and happiness that Don Roberto gathered from his servile estate.

It was the custom of the young gallants, on the completion of a dance, to conduct their partners at once back to the jealous custody of mamas, aunts, or other duennas who sat severely along the wall. There was no strolling off together, even in the sunlight of day. A girl who would have ventured out of her duenna's eyes in company with a man, would have lost her good name forever. Between dances the young men went out to smoke brief, tiny cigarettes, walking up and down the deep