“Well, and you married her, and there’s an end. You ask my forgiveness, and you have it, seeing that it does not befit me to play the part of a jealous woman. Doubtless time will soften the blow to me, Tikal,” she added, mockingly.
“There is not an end, Maya, and I come to ask you to-day to renew your promise that you will be my wife.”
“What, cousin! Having broken your troth, would you now offer me insult? Do you then propose that I, the Daughter of the Heart, should be Nahua’s handmaid?”
“No, I propose that when Nahua is put away you should take her place and your own.”
“How can this be, seeing that the Lady of the Heart cannot be divorced?”
“If she ceases to be the Lady of the Heart she can be divorced like any other woman; at the least, love has no laws, and I will find a way.”
“The way of death, perhaps. No, I will have none of you. Honour has laws, Tikal, if love has none. Go back to your wife, and pray that she may never learn how you would have treated her.”
“Is that your last word, Lady?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because more hangs on it than you know. Listen: Very soon all the men in the city will be gathered on this place to hear your father’s words, and to decide whether he or I shall rule. See, already they assemble in the temple square. Promise to be my wife, and in return I will yield to your father and he shall be master for his life’s days and have his way in all things. Refuse, and I will cling to power, and matters may go badly for him, for you, and—” he added threateningly, “for these strangers, your friends.”