The elderly half-breed had not the least idea of blaming his own crude diplomacy; on the contrary, he had been pluming himself on its success. For some time he had desired to obtain from Gore a definite expression of his wish to marry Mariquita, and he had obtained it. That it had been speedily followed by this further pronouncement, incomprehensible to the girl's father, was not his fault, but was due entirely to the Englishman's peculiarities, peculiarities that to Don Joaquin seemed perverse and almost suspicious.
"If you were a Spaniard," he said stiffly, "you would be grateful to me for being willing to influence my daughter in your favor."
Gore knew that he must be disturbed, as it was his rule to speak of himself not as a Spaniard, but as an American.
"I am grateful to you, sir, for being willing to let me hope to win your daughter for my wife—most grateful."
"You do not appear grateful to me for my willingness to simplify matters."
"They cannot be simplified—nor hurried. If your daughter can be brought to think favorably of me as one who earnestly desires to have the great, great honor and privilege of being the guardian of her life and its happiness, it must be gradually and by very gentle approaches. I hope that she already likes me, but I am sure she does not yet love me."
"Before she has been asked to be your wife! Love you! Certainly not. She will love her husband, for that will be her duty."
Gore did not feel at all like laughing; his future father-in-law's peculiarities seemed as perverse to him as his own did to Don Joaquin. He dreaded their operation; it seemed only too possible that Don Joaquin would be led to interference by them, and such interference he feared extremely; nor could he endure the idea of Mariquita's being dragooned by her father.
"If," he declared stoutly, "you thrust prematurely upon your daughter the idea of me as her husband, you will make her detest the thought of me, and I never shall be her husband."
Don Joaquin was offended.