“Really, I think our romance is spoiled. It would have been so fine—like a dime novel—to have carried you off bodily by order of infuriated, cruel parents, and on arriving at New York marry you, at the point of a loaded revolver, to a bald-headed, millionaire! Your midnight shrieks would have made the blood of the passers-by curdle! Then Clarence would have rushed in and stabbed the millionaire, and you, falling across his prostrate body, said: ‘Tramp or not, I am thine!’”
“Oh, George, stop your nonsense,” Elvira said.
“Whereas now,” George went on, “the unpoetical fact comes out that Darrell is a decent sort of a fellow, and there is no reason why a proper girl shouldn't have him for her husband; and our romance is stripped of its thrilling features, as the hero will not steal, even when Congress tells him to. And that is the dénouement, with the addition only that I am hungry. What have you got to eat in those two little baskets that Tano brought on board, and which smell so nice?”
“Ah, yes, I had forgotten. Mamma put up a nice lunch, thinking we might want it if we felt sick, or didn't want to go to the table. I'll go and bring it,” said Elvira, setting down her glass, and rising.
“Let me go,” said George, “as I am the hungry one.”
“Bring both baskets. Let us see what they have. Ah, I was forgetting, I have the three little silver plates in my satchel; we must have those,” added Elvira, following her husband.
“Can you forgive my stupidity? See what a world of anxious thoughts we would have avoided by explaining to Doña Josefa everything,” said Clarence to Mercedes.
“Yes, it was unfortunate. But you will return soon and ask papa to tell her all, will you not?”
“Indeed I will, by the next steamer; and will have better heart to await your return. My precious angel, don't ever forget how devotedly I idolize you! Will you let me send you a ring, if your mother allows me?”
“Couldn't you bring it yourself?”