"I know your sort of man, Don Jaime! We have them in my country—the Kentuckians, for instance! You do not really desire to kill Felicidad. Your pride goads you, but your heart is no longer in the work. And now you are more pleased than chagrined that I have stepped forth as her champion—you think to satisfy your pride by working up enough venom against me to bump me off and let the matter end there!
"I'll take my chances, proud hidalgo. I'll fight you every move until bitten by your lead. But you are not going, as you say, to wage much longer this war in words. Very soon you are either going to get hot enough to plug me, or you are going to throw up the sponge! Oh, I know your sort! You'll do one or the other. But one thing you will not do—you will not allow yourself to be made ridiculous!"
Don Jaime was staggered. The American's talk was a talk strange and utterly new to him. John Fremont Carson fought him with weapons that he had not known existed.
Don Jaime lowered the heavy horse-pistol to his knee. A spirit of sardonic deviltry entered into him. He would worst this cheeky American on his own ground! His lips curling half in smile, half in sneer, a strange light in his eyes, he said:
"Senor Americano, I will combat you and crush you with your own kind of weapon. I will vanquish you with words—with one question! But it must be understood, for the nonce, that I possess unqualifiedly and absolutely the right to speak as Felicidad's father."
The American nodded, a kind of bewildered wonder crowding his eyes.
"For the nonce, that prerogative is yours," he agreed.
"Bueno! Then straightway I challenge you to prove yourself of fit birth to be Felicidad's husband! This is Spain, senor. I speak now as a Spanish father. More; I am a hidalgo, and I speak for my daughter who is the daughter of a hidalgo of Spain! She has an inheritance of blood and pride which you cannot gainsay, but which you must equal if you would marry her!"
Dan Jaime spoke with a Latin fluency of exposition, in a rushing torrent of words. His eyes sparkled like vitreous slag.
"Look you, my cheeky one! No man of common birth may hope to aspire to my daughter. We Spanish grandees are a feudal race, caste-bound and arrogant of birth. Perhaps you do not understand the true color of the situation, eh? Then know you that even in Spain there are not more than a score of men who are my equal in seignior blood and ancient knightly name!