“Patiently!” echoed she, with a scornful laugh. “And where was this same goodly gift to be learned? Among the pleasant company we have quitted, senhor? whose friendships of a night are celebrated by a brawl on the morrow! From the most exemplary crew of the 'Esmeralda,' and, in particular, the worthy lieutenant, Don Roland da Castel, who, if report speaks truly, husbands the virtue so rigidly that he cannot spare the smallest portion to expend upon his friends?”
“If my thrift had extended to other matters,” said the youth, bitterly, “mayhap I should not have to listen to language like this?”
“What say you, sir?” cried the girl, passionately, as she stamped upon the ground with a gesture of violent anger. “Do you affect to say that it matters to me whether you stood there as loaded with gold as on the morning you brought back that Mexican prize, and played the hero with such martial modesty; or as poor—as poor—as bad luck at cards can make you? If I loved you, I 'd have as little care for one event as the other!”
“You certainly thought more favorably of me then than now, Maritaña!” said Roland, diffidently.
“I know not why you say so!”
“At least you accepted my hand in betrothal—”
“Stay!” cried she, impetuously. “Did I not tell you then, before the assembled witnesses—before my father—what a mockery this same ceremony was; that its whole aim and object was to take advantage of that disgraceful law that can make an unmarried girl a widow, to inherit the fortune of one she never would have accepted as her husband. Speak, sir!—and say, did I not tell you this, and more too, that such a bridal ceremony brought little fortune to the bridegroom; for that already I had been thrice a widowed bride? Nay, more, you heard me swear as solemnly, that while I regarded the act as one of deep profanation, I felt in nowise bound by it. It is idle, then, to speak of our betrothal!”
“It is true, Maritaña, you said all this; although, perhaps, you had not now remembered it, had not some other succeeded to that place in your regard—”
“There, there!” cried she, stopping him impatiently. “I will not listen again to the bead-roll of your jealousies. People must have loved very little, or too much, to endure that kind of torture. Besides, why tell me of these things? You are, they say, a most accomplished hunter, and can answer me,—if, when in chase of an antelope, a jaguar joins the sport, you do not turn upon him at once, the worthier and nobler enemy, and thus, as it were, protect what had been your prey.”
The youth seemed stung to the quick by this pitiless sarcasm; and, although he made no reply, his hands, convulsively clutched, bespoke the torrent of agitation within him. “You are right, Maritaña!” said be, after a pause. “It is idle to talk of our betrothal,—I release you.”