"Oh, fool!" interrupted Doña Eustaquia. "Thrice fool! A hundred years from now, Fernando Altimira, and our names will be forgotten in California. Fifty years from now and our walls will tumble upon us whilst we cook our beans in the rags that charity--American charity--has flung us! I tell you that the hour the American flag waves above the fort of Monterey is the hour of the Californians' doom. We have lived in Arcadia--ingrates that you are to complain--they will run over us like ants and sting us to death!" "That is the prediction of my husband," said Doña Modeste. "Liberty, Independence, Decency, Honour, how long will they be his watch-words?" "Not a day longer!" cried Doña Eustaquia, "for the men of California are cowards." "Cowards! We? No man should say that to us!" The caballeros were on their feet, their eyes flashing, as if they faced in uniform the navy of the United States, rather than confronted, in lace ruffles and silken smallclothes, an angry scornful woman. "Cowards!" continued Fernando Altimira. "Are not men flocking about General Castro at San Juan Bautista, willing to die in a cause already lost? If our towns were sacked or our women outraged would not the weakest of us fight until we died in our blood? But what is coming is for the best, Doña Eustaquia, despite your prophecy; and as we cannot help it--we, a few thousand men against a great nation--we resign ourselves because we are governed by reason instead of by passion. No one reverences our General more than Fernando Altimira. No grander man ever wore a uniform! But he is fighting in a hopeless cause, and the fewer who uphold him the less blood will flow, the sooner the struggle will finish." Doña Modeste covered her beautiful face and wept. Many of the women sobbed in sympathy. Bright eyes, from beneath gay rebosas or delicate mantillas, glanced approvingly at the speaker. Brown old men and women stared gloomily at the floor. But the greater number followed every motion of their master-spirit, Doña Eustaquia Ortega. She walked rapidly up and down the long room, too excited to sit down, flinging the mantilla back as it brushed her hot cheek. She was a woman not yet forty, and very handsome, although the peachness of youth had left her face. Her features were small but sharply cut; the square chin and firm mouth had the lines of courage and violent emotions, her piercing intelligent eyes interpreted a terrible power of love and hate. But if her face was so strong as to be almost unfeminine, it was frank and kind.