When first we venture to deceive.
While Zuleime’s heart was beating so fast with many emotions, her father sauntered into the parlor, where he found Major Cabell caressing and soothing his afflicted face.
“Well, Charley, boy! How is it with you, eh? Could you win a hearing from my little girl, eh? Give her time, you know, eh?” said the old gentleman, affecting a lightness of heart which he was very far from feeling.
To his surprise, Major Cabell laughed heartily, still coaxing his ill-used phiz.
“What’s the matter, Charley? What’s amused you, eh?”
“Your girl! By my soul, Governor, I shall end in falling seriously in love with that girl! I didn’t fancy her much at first to tell you the truth! She was entirely too good humored—always laughing. And I had a fancy for marrying a shrew, just for the spicy fun of taming one! The same instinct, Governor, that makes me like to spring upon the back of the most vicious horse I can find, and ride and lash and spur and fatigue the soul out of his body, until I break his back or his temper, one—eh, Governor?”
The old man’s florid cheeks became pale with rage, and he felt an impulse to kick the puppy out, but a terrible necessity tied his tongue and hands, and Charles Cabell went on laughing and talking to this effect:—
“Now, then, having a fancy to marry and tame a shrew—real live, vicious, beautiful vixen—I did not want the spiciest part of the sport taken out of my hands by fathers and mothers and pastors and masters. I shouldn’t have thanked any of you for presenting me with a model wife, already smoothed down and polished to my hand. D—n your pretty pieces of perfection! I’ll none of them—flat, insipid nonentities!—formed and re-formed, and modelled, and re-modelled, and rubbed down and polished until they all look as much alike as beads on a string! No, none of your polished gems for Charles Cabell!—the bright, pure, rough, sharp ore! Now, of Zuleime, I thought her far too much educated—too good humored, too polite, too docile, too much of the young ‘lady,’ too little of the wild young animal—and flat and insipid in consequence; so I cared very little about her. But, ha, ha, ha! I never was more mistaken in my life! She’s a prize, I tell you! A prize of the first class! Look you! I coveted a shrew! I’ve found a virago! full of blood and fire! strong and vicious, I tell you! ha, ha, ha! Think of her dashing her little hand in my face when I went to kiss her, and before I recovered my eyesight and senses, throwing me off as if I had been a child, and escaping! Ha, ha, ha! I under-estimated her strength!—Never mind! let the little tigress look out for the next time I get her in my arms!”
The old man’s bosom was filled to bursting with suppressed passion, but he answered, calmly—
“Oh! she’s young—she’s young, a spoiled child—a spoiled child; be patient with her—she means well—give her time—be patient with her.”