“Cousin Charles, do me a favor! Do not press this matter for a week or so.”
“Heaven forbid that I should hurry a lady, though that lady be my own little cousin and betrothed—only fix the day and I will rest content—so that it is not a far distant day,” he said, re-capturing her hand, throwing his arm around her waist, and drawing her towards him.
“Please, don’t! Let me go, cousin Charles!” exclaimed the girl, in great distress, struggling to free herself.
“‘Please, don’t let me go, cousin Charles!’ I don’t intend to, pretty cousin, until you tell me when you will give yourself to me!” replied Major Cabell, kissing her all the more heartily because she strove to escape.
“You know what I meant! Let me alone! It is unmanly to behave so! Don’t make me hate you!” was on her quivering lips and in her flashing eyes, as by a sudden effort she threw his arms off and sat down; but then she recollected her father, and the cruel power Major Cabell seemed to possess over him, and she choked down the indignant words, and said instead—
“Please, don’t hurry and worry me, cousin Charles!—this is so very sudden! I am sure I never dreamed you would ask for poor me for years to come yet. I am so young.”
“‘So young!’ Ah, Zuleime, that is a piece of pretty little womanish hypocrisy—a little finesse that belongs to your character, and is inherited from your French mother! ‘So young!’ Now, my pretty childish cousin, you know you have received an offer of marriage this very week! And that, indeed, has accelerated my proposal. Fair Zuleime, a man does not care to see his young betrothed bride courted by another!”
“I know that!” replied Zuleime, in a peculiarly sad voice, moving to the other end of the room.
The slightest gesture of avoidance of him by the girl, seemed to act as a provocative on him, so he followed her, and clasped her in his arms, and laughing, almost rudely kissed her, begging her between the kisses not to set his heart on fire by her charming prudery and petulance, but to fix the day, like a good, sensible girl as she was. Almost frantic with rage and shame at being so freely handled, the Clifton blood rushed to her brain, and forgetting her father’s interest and everything else, she dashed her hand violently into his face, and before he recovered from his astonishment, broke from him and escaped—her heart beating with one thought—one sudden, joyous thought—that come what might, she never could be either forced or persuaded into a marriage with Major Cabell, because she was already a wedded wife—no set of circumstances, whatever, could make it her duty, or make it even possible for her to marry Major Cabell. In all her sorrows, that was one blessed truth to sit down and rest upon. All her duty was now due to her husband. And with a youthful wife’s enthusiasm firing and strengthening her heart, she thought she should stand as upon a rock, secure against a sea of troubles. Poor child, she had yet to learn that no position founded on a fault is for a moment safe. Several things soon forced themselves upon her memory and grieved her heart;—her father’s unknown but certain danger, her own promise of secrecy in regard to her marriage, the necessity of giving some definite answer to Major Cabell, and the obligation pressing upon her to prevent, by all and any means, the highly improper and extremely offensive demonstrations of passion from her suitor. She determined to write to Frank, tell him all that had occurred, and ask his advice and direction; and to do this it was necessary to gain time, and to give no false promise in the interim. Already was Zuleime beginning to taste the bitter fruits of her stolen marriage, and might have exclaimed, in the perplexity of her distracted heart and brain—
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,