“Forgive me,” said Don Pedro: “you can scarcely adhere to your pledge of brevity if you permit yourself to be led away by moralizing; just say how this event concerns me, and wherefore the present visit.”
Roland became red with anger and shame, and when he resumed it was in a voice tremulous with ill-suppressed passion. “I did not come here for your sympathy, senhor. If the circumstance I have mentioned had no relation to yourself, you had not seen me here. I say that I have now lost all that I was possessed of in the world.”
“Again I must interrupt you, Senhor Roland, by saying that these are details for Geizheimer, not for me. He, as you well know, transacts all matters of money, and if you desire a loan, or are in want of any immediate assistance, I 'm sure you 'll find him in every way disposed to meet your wishes.”
“Thanks, senhor, but I am not inclined for such aid. I will neither mortgage my blood nor my courage, nor promise three hundred per cent for the means of a night at the gambling-table.”
“Then pray, sir, how am I to understand your visit? Is it intended for the sake of retailing to me your want of fortune at play, and charging me with the results of your want of skill or luck?”
“Far from it, senhor. It is simply to make known that I am ruined; that I have nothing left me in the world; and that, as one whose fortune has deserted him, I have come to ask back that bond by which I accepted your daughter's hand in betrothal.”
A burst of laughter from Don Pedro here stopped the speaker, who, with flushed cheek and glaring eyeballs, stared at this sudden outbreak. “Do you know for what you ask me, senhor?” said Rica, smiling insolently.
“Yes, I ask for what you never could think to enforce,—to make me, a beggar, the husband of your daughter.”
“Most true; I never thought of such an alliance. I believe you were told that Columbian law gives these contracts the force of a legal claim, in the event of survivorship; and you flattered yourself, perhaps too hastily, that other ties more binding still might grow from it. If Fortune was as fickle with you here as at the card-table, the fault is not in me.”
“But of what avail is it now?” said Roland, passionately. “If I died to-morrow, there is not sufficient substance left to buy a suit of mourning for my poor widow.”