Mr. Calhoun Weaver arrived promptly, ostentatiously, oracularly, and cordially, but a little coarsely.  He had—­did she remember?—­expected this from the first.  Spencer had lost his head through vanity, and had attempted too much.  It required foresight and firmness, as he himself—­who had lately made successful “combinations” which she might perhaps have heard of—­well knew.  But Spencer had got the “big head.”  “As to that woman—­a devilish handsome woman too!—­well, everybody knew that Spencer always had a weakness that way, and he would say—­but if she didn’t care to hear any more about her—­well, perhaps she was right.  That was the best way to take it.”  Sitting before her, prosperous, weak, egotistical, incompetent, unavailable, and yet filled with a vague kindliness of intent, Mrs. Tucker loathed him.  A sickening perception of her own weakness in sending for him, a new and aching sense of her utter isolation and helplessness, seemed to paralyze her.

“Nat’rally you feel bad,” he continued, with the large air of a profound student of human nature.  “Nat’rally, nat’rally you’re kept in an uncomfortable state, not knowing jist how you stand.  There ain’t but one thing to do.  Jist rise up, quiet like, and get a divorce agin Spencer.  Hold on!  There ain’t a judge or jury in California that wouldn’t give it to you right off the nail, without asking questions.  Why, you ’ld get it by default if you wanted to; you ’ld just have to walk over the course!  And then, Belle,” he drew his chair still nearer her, “when you’ve settled down again—­well!—­I don’t mind renewing that offer I once made ye, before Spencer ever came round ye—­I don’t mind, Belle, I swear I don’t!  Honest Injin!  I’m in earnest, there’s my hand!”

Mrs. Tucker’s reply has not been recorded.  Enough that half an hour later Mr. Weaver appeared in the courtyard with traces of tears on his foolish face, a broken falsetto voice, and other evidence of mental and moral disturbance.  His cordiality and oracular predisposition remained sufficiently to enable him to suggest the magical words “Blue Grass” mysteriously to Concha, with an indication of his hand to the erect figure of her pale mistress in the doorway, who waved to him a silent but half-compassionate farewell.

At about this time a slight change in her manner was noticed by the few who saw her more frequently.  Her apparently invincible girlishness of spirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness.  She applied herself to her household cares and the improvement of the hacienda with a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degrees she wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, but part of her own individuality.  Even the rude rancheros and tradesmen who were permitted to enter the walls in the exercise of their calling began to speak mysteriously of the beauty of this garden of the almarjal.  She went out but seldom, and then accompanied by the one or the other of her female servants, in long drives