Overland Part 22

Aunt Maria came near clapping her hands. This was better than Connecticut or Indiana. A woman here might successively marry all the men whom she might successively fancy, and thus enjoy a perpetual gush of the affections and an unruffled current of happiness.

To such extreme views had this excellent creature been led by brooding over what she called the wrongs of her s.e.x and the legal tyranny of the other.

But we must return to Coronado and Clara. The man had come up to the pueblo on purpose to have a plain talk with the girl and learn exactly what she meant to do with him. It was now more than a week since he had offered himself, and in that time she had made no sign which indicated her purpose. He had looked at her and sighed at her without getting a response of any sort. This could not go on; he must know how she felt towards him; he must know how much, she cared for Thurstane. How else could he decide what to do with her and with _him_?

Thus, while the other members of the party were watching the Moqui dances, Coronado and Clara were talking matters of the heart, and were deciding, unawares to her, questions of life and death.

CHAPTER XVI.

It must be remembered that when Mrs. Stanley carried off skipper Glover to help her investigate the religion of the Moquis, she left Coronado alone with Clara in one of the interior rooms of the chief's house.

Thurstane, to be sure, was in the next room and in sight; but he had with him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter; they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was a pretty smart jabbering. Thus Coronado could say his say without being overheard or interrupted.

For a little while he babbled commonplaces. The truth is that the sight of the girl had unsettled his resolutions a little. While he was away from her, he could figure to himself how he would push her into taking him at once, or how, if she refused him, he would let loose upon her the dogs of fate. But once face to face with her, he found that his resolutions had dispersed like a globule of mercury under a hammer, and that he needed a few moments to sc.r.a.pe them together again. So he prattled nothings while he meditated; and you would have thought that he cared for the nothings.

He had that faculty; he could mentally ride two horses at once; he would have made a good diplomatist.

His mind glanced at the past while it peered into the future. What a sinuous underground plot the superficial incidents of this journey covered! To his fellow-travellers it was a straight line; to him it was a complicated and endless labyrinth. How much more he had to think of than they! Only he knew that Pedro Munoz was dead, that Clara Van Diemen was an heiress, that she was in danger of being abandoned to the desert, that Thurstane was in danger of a.s.sa.s.sination. Nothing that he had set out to do was yet done, and some of it he must absolutely accomplish, and that shortly. How much? That depended upon this girl. If she accepted him, his course would be simple, and he would be spared the perils of crime.

Meantime, he looked at Clara even more frankly and calmly than she looked at him. He showed no guilt or remorse in his face, because he felt none in his heart. It must be understood distinctly that the man was almost as dest.i.tute of a conscience as it is possible for a member of civilized society to be. He knew what the world called right and wrong; but the mere opinion of the world had no weight with him; that is, none as against his own opinion. His rule of life was to do what he wanted to do, providing he could accomplish it without receiving a damage. You can hardly imagine a being whose interior existence was more devoid of complexity and of mixed motives than was Coronado's. Thus he was quite able to contemplate the possible death of Clara, and still look her calmly in the face and tell her that he loved her.

The girl returned his gaze tranquilly, because she had no suspicions of his profound wickedness. By nature confiding and reverential, she trusted those who professed friendship, and respected those who were her elders, especially if they belonged in any manner to her own family. Considering herself under obligations to Coronado, and not guessing that he was capable of doing her a harm, she was truly grateful to him and wished him well with all her heart. If her eye now and then dropped under his, it was because she feared a repet.i.tion of his offer of marriage, and hated to pain him with a refusal.

The commonplaces lasted longer than the man had meant, for he could not bring himself promptly to take the leap of fate. But at last came the dance; the chief and his comrades led Thurstane away to look at it; now was the time to talk of this fateful betrothal.

"Something is pa.s.sing outside," observed Clara. "Shall we go to see?"

"I am entirely at your command," replied Coronado, with his charming air of gentle respect. "But if you can give me a few minutes of your time, I shall be very grateful."

Clara's heart beat violently, and her cheeks and neck flushed with spots of red, as she sank back upon her seat. She guessed what was coming; she had been a good deal afraid of it all the time; it was her only cause of dreading Coronado.

"I venture to hope that you have been good enough to think of what I said to you a week ago," he went on. "Yes, it was a week ago. It seems to me a year."

"It seems a long time," stammered Clara. So it did, for the days since had been crammed with emotions and events, and they gave her young mind an impression of a long period pa.s.sed.

"I have been so full of anxiety!" continued Coronado. "Not about our dangers," he a.s.serted with a little bravado. "Or, rather, not about mine.

For you I have been fearful. The possibility that you might fall into the hands of the Apaches was a horror to me. But, after all, my chief anxiety was to know what would be your final answer to me. Yes, my beautiful and very dear cousin, strange as it may seem under our circ.u.mstances, this thought has always outweighed with me all our dangers."

Coronado, as we have already declared, was really in love with Clara. It seems incredible, at first glance, that a man who had no conscience could have a heart. But the a.s.sertion is not a fairy story; it is founded in solid philosophy. It is true that Coronado's moral education had been neglected or misdirected; that he was either born indifferent to the idea of duty, or had become indifferent to it; and that he was an egotist of the first water, bent solely upon favoring and gratifying himself. But while his nature was somewhat chilled by these things, he had the hottest of blood in his veins, he possessed a keen perception of the beautiful, and so he could desire with fury. His love could not be otherwise than selfish; but it was none the less capable of ruling him tyrannically.

Just at this moment his intensity of feeling made him physically imposing and almost fascinating. It seemed to remove a veil from his usually filmy black eyes, and give him power for once to throw out all of truth that there was in his soul. It communicated to his voice a tremor which made it eloquent. He exhaled, as it were, an aroma of puissant emotion which was intoxicating, and which could hardly fail to act upon the sensitive nature of woman. Clara was so agitated by this influence, that for the moment she seemed to herself to know no man in the world but Coronado. Even while she tried to remember Thurstane, he vanished as if expelled by some enchantment, and left her alone in life with her tempter. Still she could not or would not answer; though she trembled, she remained speechless.

"I have asked you to be my wife," resumed Coronado, seeing that he must urge her. "I venture now to ask you again. I implore you not to refuse me.

I cannot be refused. It would make me utterly wretched. It might perhaps bring wretchedness upon you. I hope not. I could not wish you a pain, though you should give me many. My very dear Clara, I offer you the only love of my life, and the only love that I shall ever offer to any one.

Will you take it?"

Clara was greatly moved. She could not doubt his sincerity; no one who heard him could have doubted it; he _was_ sincere. To her, young, tender-hearted, capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection. If it had not been for Thurstane, she would have taken Coronado for pity.

"Oh, my cousin!" she sighed, and stopped there.

Coronado drew courage from the kindly t.i.tle of relationship, and, leaning gently towards her, attempted to take her hand. It was a mistake; she was strangely shocked by his touch; she perceived that she did not like him, and she drew away from him.

"Thank you for that word," he whispered. "Is it the kindest that you can give me? Is there--?"

"Coronado!" she interrupted. "This is all an error. See here. I am not an independent creature. I am a young girl. I owe some duty somewhere. My father and mother are gone, but I have a grandfather. Coronado, he is the head of my family, and I ought not to marry without his permission. Why can you not wait until we are with Munoz?"

There she suddenly dropped her head between the palms of her hands. It struck her that she was hypocritical; that even with the consent of Munoz she would not marry Coronado; that it was her duty to tell him so.

"My cousin, I have not told the whole truth," she added, after a terrible struggle. "I would not marry any one without first laying the case before my grandfather. But that is not all. Coronado, I cannot--no, I cannot marry you."

The man without a conscience, the man who was capable of planning and ordering murder, turned pale under this announcement.

Notwithstanding its commonness, notwithstanding that it has been described until the subject is hackneyed, notwithstanding that it has become a laughing-stock for many, even including poets and novelists, there is probably no heart-pain keener than disappointment in love. The shock of it is like a deep stab; it not merely tortures, but it instantly sickens; the anguish is much, but the sense of helplessness is more; the lover who is refused feels not unlike the soldier who is wounded to death.

This sorrow compares in dignity and terror with the most sublime sorrows of which humanity is capable. The death of a parent or child, though rendered more imposing to the spectator by the ceremonies of the sepulchre, does not chill the heart more deeply than the death of love. It lasts also; many a human being has carried the marks of it for life; and surely duration of effect is proof of power. We are serious in making these declarations, strange as they may seem to a satirical age. What we have said is strictly true, notwithstanding the mockery of those who have never loved, or the incredulity of those who, having loved, have never lost. But probably only the wretchedly initiated will believe.

Coronado, though selfish, infamous, and atrocious, was so far susceptible of affection that he was susceptible of suffering. The simple fact of pallor in that hardened face was sufficient proof of torture.

However, it stood him in hand to recover his self-possession and plead his suit. There was too much at stake in this cause for him to let it go without a struggle and a vehement one. Although he had seen at once that the girl was in earnest, he tried to believe that she was not so, and that he could move her.

"My dear cousin!" he implored in a voice that was mellow with agitation, "don't decide against me at once and forever. I must have some hope. Pity me."

"Ah, Coronado! Why will you?" urged Clara, in great trouble.

"I must! You must not stop me!" he persisted eagerly. "My life is in it. I love you so that I don't know how I shall end if you will not hearken to me. I shall be driven to desperation. Why do you turn away from me? Is it my fault that I care for you? It is your own. You are _so_ beautiful!"

"Coronado, I wish I were very ugly," murmured Clara, for the moment sincere in so wishing.

"Is there anything you dislike in me? I have been as kind as I knew how to be."

"It is true, Coronado. You have overwhelmed me with your goodness. I could go on my knees to thank you."

"Then--why?"

"Ah! why will you force me to say hard things? Don't you see that it tortures me to refuse you?"

"Then why refuse me? Why torture us both?"

"Better a little pain now than much through life."

"Do you mean to say that you never can--?" He could not finish the question.

"It is so, Coronado. I never could have said it myself. But you have said it. I never shall love you."

Once more the man felt a cutting and sickening wound, as of a bullet penetrating a vital part. Unable for the moment to say another word, he rose and walked the room in silence.