Deolda looked at her with a sort of wonder. "We were only saying out loud what every girl's thinking about when she marries a man of forty-five, or when she marries a man who's sixty-five. It's a trade—the world's like that."
"Let me tell you one thing," said my aunt. "You can't fool with Capt. Mark Hammar. It means that you give up your other sweetheart."
"That's to be seen," said Deolda in her dark, sultry way. Then she said, as if she was talking to herself: "Life—with him—would be interesting. He thinks he could crush me like a fly.—He can't, though—" And then all of a sudden she burst into tears and threw herself in my aunt's lap, sobbing: "Oh, oh! Why's life like this? Why isn't my Johnny grown up? Why—don't he—take me away—from them all?"
After that Captain Hammar kept coming to the house. He showed well enough he was serious.
"That black devil's hypnotized her," my aunt put it.
Deolda seemed to have some awful kinship to Mark Hammar, and Johnny Deutra, who never paid much attention to old Conboy, paid attention to him. Black looks passed between them, and I would catch "Nick" Hammar's eyes resting on Johnny with a smiling venom that struck fear into me. Johnny Deutra seldom came daytimes, but he came in late one afternoon and sat there looking moodily at Deolda, who flung past him with the air she had when she wore the saffron shawl. I could almost see its long fringes trailing behind her as she stood before him, one hand on her tilted hip, her head on one side.
It was a queer sort of day, a day with storm in the air, a day when all our nerves got on edge, when the possibility of danger whips the blood. I had an uncomfortable sense of knowing that I ought to leave Deolda and Johnny and that Johnny was waiting for me to go to talk. And yet I was fascinated, as little girls are; and just as I was about to leave the room I ran into old Conboy hurrying in, his reddish hair standing on end.
"Well, Deolda," said he, "Captain Hammar's gone down the Cape all of a sudden. He told me to tell you good-by for him. Deolda, for God's sake, marry me before he comes back! He'll kill you, that's what he'll do. It's not for my sake I'm asking you—it's for your sake!"
She looked at him with her big black eyes. "I believe you mean that, Conboy. I believe I'll do it. But I'll be fair and square with you as you are with me. You'd better let me be; you know what I'm like. I won't make you happy; I never pretended I would. And as for him killing me, how do you know, Conboy, I mightn't lose my temper first?"
"He'll break you," said Conboy. "God! but he's a man without pity! Don't you know how he drives his men? Don't you know the stories about his first wife? He's put some of his magic on you. You're nothing but a poor little lamb, Deolda, playing with a wolf, for all your spirit. There's nothing he'd stop at. Nothing," he repeated, staring at Johnny. "I wouldn't give a cent for that Johnny Deutra's life until I'm married to you, Deolda. I've seen the way Mark Hammar looks at him—you have, too. I tell you, Mark Hammar don't value the life of any man who stands in his way!" And the way the old man spoke lifted the hair on my head.