"Have they any?" whispered one. "How unreal they look! How symbolical!"
"The rose in your hair, Señorita Eustaquia, for the love of Heaven!" cried Ortega, in a loud whisper.
She detached the rose, touched it with her lips, and cast it to the officer. He almost swallowed it in the ardour of his caresses.
None of the girls spoke. That would have seemed to them the height of impropriety. But Elena extended her arm over the wall so that her little hand hung just above young Castro's head. He leaped three times in the air, and finally succeeded in brushing his mustache against those coveted finger-tips: rewarded with an approving but tantalizing laugh. Meanwhile, José Yorba had torn a silver eagle from his sombrero, and flung it to Lola de Castro, who caught and thrust it in her hair.
"Ay, Dios! Dios! that the cruel wall divides us," cried Yorba.
"We will mount each upon the other's shoulder--"
"We will make a ladder from the limbs of the pines on the mountain--"
The six heads dropped from the wall like so many Humpty-Dumpties. As they flashed about the officers caught a glimpse of horror in twelve expanded eyes. A tall woman, serenely beautiful, clad in a long gray gown fastened at her throat with a cross, stood just within the trees. The six culprits thought of the tragic romance which had given them the honour of being educated by Concepción de Arguello, and hoped for some small measure of mercy. The girl who had looked over the heads of the officers, letting her gaze rest on the holy walls of the church, alone looked coldly unconcerned, and encountered steadily the sombre eyes of the convent's mistress.
"Was thy lover in the road below, Pilar?" asked Doña Concepción, with what meaning five of the girls could not divine. For Pilar, the prettiest and most studious girl in the convent, cared for no man.
Pilar's bosom rose once, but she made no reply.
"Come," said Doña Concepción, and the six followed meekly in her wake. She led them to her private sala, a bare cold room, even in summer. It was uncarpeted; a few religious prints were on the whitewashed walls; there were eight chairs, and a table covered with books and papers. The six shivered. To be invited to this room meant the greatest of honours or a lecture precursory to the severest punishment in the system of the convent. Doña Concepción seated herself in a large chair, but her guests were not invited to relieve their weakened knees.