Mariquita Part 19

"I am afraid so; ever since he made up his mind. I do not think he liked the idea of letting you marry me till long after he saw what I hoped for. You see, I began to hope for it from the very first--from the day when we first met, by the river. He did not like me then; he did not know whether to approve of me or not. And at first he was inclined to approve all the less because he saw I wanted to win you for myself. I don't know that he likes me much even now; but he approves, and he approves of my plan. You know that once he has made up his mind to approve a plan, he likes it more and more. He gets determined and obstinate about it."

"Yes. He will be angry."

"I am afraid so. But--it is because he thinks it a father's duty to arrange for his daughter's future, and this plan suited him."

"Oh, yes! I know he is a good man. He will feel he is right in being angry."

"But I don't. He will be wrong. Though he is your father, he has not the right to try and force you to do what you say is impossible."

"Yes," she said gently, "it is impossible. But I shall not be able to make him see that."

"I see it. And it concerns me more than it concerns him."

"You are more kind than anyone I ever heard of," she told him. "I never dared to hope you would come to see that--that it is impossible."

"Can you tell him why?"

"Perhaps I do not quite understand you."

"It seems a long time ago, now, to me since I asked you if you could come to love me and be my wife. Everything seems changed and different.

I wonder if I could guess why you knew instantly that it was impossible. It might help you with your father."

Mariquita listened, and gave no prohibition.

"I think," he said, "you knew it was impossible, because my words taught you, if you did not know already, that you could be no man's wife--"

"Oh, yes! That is true."

"But perhaps they taught you also something else, which you may not have known before--that you could belong only to G.o.d."

"I have known that always," she answered simply.

CHAPTER XXIX.

When Don Joaquin returned, he was in an unusually bad temper, and it was well that Mariquita had gone to bed. Gore was sitting up, and, though it was long past Sarella's usual hour, she had insisted on sitting up also.

This was good-natured of her, for there was no pleasure to be antic.i.p.ated from the interview with Don Joaquin, and she disliked any derangement of her habits. Gore had begged her to retire at her ordinary hour, but she had flatly refused.

"I can do more with him than you can," she declared, quite truly, "though no one will be able to stop his being as savage as a bear. I'm sorry for Mariquita; she'll have a bad time to-morrow, and it won't end with to-morrow."

Meanwhile she took the trouble to have ready a good supper for Don Joaquin, and made rather a special toilette in which to help him to it.

Sarella was not in the least afraid of him, and had no great dread of a row which concerned someone else. Don Joaquin was not, however, particularly mollified by the becoming dress, nor by finding his betrothed sitting up for him, as she was sitting up with Gore.

"Where's Mariquita?" he asked, as he sat down to eat.

"In bed long ago. I hope you'll like that chicken; it's done in a special way we have, and the recipe's my patent. I haven't taught it to Mariquita."

"Why aren't _you_ in bed?"

"Because I preferred waiting to see you safe at home," Sarella replied with an entrancing smile.

"Was Mr. Gore anxious too?" Don Joaquin demanded sarcastically.

"It is not a quarter of an hour later than my usual time for going to bed," Gore answered. "And I thought it better to see you; you would, I believe, have _expected_ to see me."

"Very well. You have done as you said?"

"Yes." Gore glanced at Sarella, and Don Joaquin told her that she had now better sit up no longer.

"_I_ think I had," she told him; "I know all about it."

"Is it all settled?" Don Joaquin asked, looking at Gore. "Have you fixed it up?"

Gore found this abruptness and haste made his task very difficult.

He had to consider how to form his reply.

"He proposed to Mariquita," Sarella cut in, "but she refused him."

"Refused him!" Don Joaquin almost shouted.

"Unfortunately, it is so," Gore was beginning, but his host interrupted him.

"I do not choose she should refuse," he said angrily. "I will tell her so before you see her in the morning."

Gore was angry himself, and rose from his seat.

"No," he said; "I will not agree to that. She knows her own mind, and it will not change. You must not persecute her on my account."

"It is not on your account. I choose to have duty and obedience from my own daughter."

"Joaquin," said Sarella (Gore had never before heard her call him by his Christian name), "it is no use taking it that way. Mariquita is not undutiful, and you must know it. But she will not marry Mr. Gore--or anybody."

"Of course she will marry," cried the poor girl's father fiercely. "That is the duty of every girl."

Sarella slightly smiled.

"Then many girls do not do their duty," she said, in her even, unimpa.s.sioned tones.

Her elderly _fiance_ was about to burst into another explosion, but she would not let him.

"Many Catholic girls," she reminded him, "remain unmarried."

"To be nuns--that is different."

"It is my belief," she observed in a detached manner, as if indulging in a mere surmise, "that Mariquita will be a nun."