Miss Carmencita was at that moment reiterating her everlasting determination to go wherever her father went. “If you think, sir, that your faithlessness to him is a recommendation of your promised faithfulness to me, I can only wish you more light on the feelings of a daughter,” she was informing Valdez, when her father slipped through the panel door and stood before her.
“Brava, señorita!” he applauded, with subtle irony, clapping his hands. “Brava, brava!”
That young woman swam blushingly toward him and let her face disappear in an embrace.
“You see, one can’t have everything, Señor Valdez,” continued Megales lightly. “For me, I cannot have both Chihuahua and my life; you, it seems, cannot have both your successful revolution and my daughter.”
“Your excellency, she loves me. Of that I am assured. It rests with you to say whether her life will be spoiled or not. You know what I can offer her in addition to a heart full of devotion. It is enough. Shall she be sacrificed to her loyalty to you?” the young man demanded, with all the ardor of his warm-blooded race.
“It is no sacrifice to love and obey my father,” came a low murmur from the former governor’s shoulder.
“Since the world began it has been the law of life that the young should leave their parents for a home of their own,” Juan protested.
“So the Scripture says,” agreed Megales sardonically. “It further counsels to love one’s enemies, but, I think, omits mention of the enemies of one’s father.”
“Sir, I am not your enemy. Political exigencies have thrown us into different camps, but we are not so small as to let such incidentals come between us as a vital objection in such a matter.”
“You argue like a lawyer,” smiled the governor. “You forget that I am neither judge nor jury. Tyrant I may have been to a fickle people that needed a firm hand to rule them, but tyrant I am not to my only daughter.”