“Tell me how I can deliver her?” I said, feeling very much moved at what I had heard.
“How! By carrying her off forcibly—do you understand? Is it not in your power to return in a few days’ time with two or three friends to do this thing? You must come disguised and armed. If I am in the way I will do what I can to protect her, but you will easily knock me down and stun me—do you understand? Don Hilario must not know that we are in the plot. From him fear nothing, for, though he is brave enough to threaten a woman with death, before armed men he is like a dog that hears thunder. You can then take her to Montevideo and conceal her there. The rest will be easy. Don Hilario will fail to find her; Ramona and I will take care of the Colonel, and when his daughter is out of his sight perhaps he will forget her. Then, señor, there will be no trouble about the property; for who can resist a legal claim?”
“I do not understand you, Santos,” said I. “If Demetria wishes me to do what you say, and there is no other way to save her from Don Hilario’s persecutions, I will do it. I will do anything to serve her, and I have no fear of that dog Hilario. But when I have placed her in concealment, who in Montevideo, where she is without a friend, will take up her cause and see that she is not defrauded of her rights? I can give her liberty, but that will be all.”
“The property will be the same as yours when you marry her,” said he.
I had never suspected that this was coming, and was amazed to hear it.
“Will you tell me, Santos,” said I, “that Demetria sent you to say this to me? Does she think that only by marrying her I can deliver her from this robber and save her property?”
“There is, of course, no other way,” said he. “If it could be done by other means, would she not have spoken last night and explained everything to you? Consider, señor, all this large property will be yours. If you do not like this department, then she will sell everything for you to buy an estancia elsewhere, or to do whatever you wish. And I ask you this, señor, could any man marry a better woman?”
“No,” said I; “but, Santos, I cannot marry your mistress.”
I remembered then, sadly enough, that I had told her next to nothing about myself. Seeing me so young, wandering homeless about the country, she had naturally taken me for a single man; and, perhaps thinking that I had conceived an affection for her, had been driven in her despair to make this proposal. Poor Demetria, was there to be no deliverance for her after all!
“Friend,” said Santos, dropping the ceremonious señor in his anxiety to serve his mistress, “never speak without first considering all things. There is no woman like her. If you do not love her now you will love her when you know her better; no good man could help feeling affection for her. You saw her last evening in a green silk dress, also wearing a tortoiseshell comb and gold ornaments—was she not elegant, señor? Did she not then appear to your eyes a woman suitable for a wife? You have been everywhere, and have seen many women, and perhaps in some distant place you have met one more beautiful than my mistress. But consider the life she has led! Grief has made her pale and thin, staining her face with purple under the eyes. Can laughter and song come out of a heart where fear is? Another life would change all; she would be a flower amongst women.”
Poor old simple-minded Santos, he had done himself great injustice; his love for his mistress had inspired him with an eloquence that went to my heart. And poor Demetria, driven by her weary, desolate life and torturing fears to make in vain this unwomanly proposal to a stranger! And, after all, it was not unwomanly; for in all countries where they are not abject slaves it is permissible for women in some circumstances to propose marriage. Even in England it is so, where society is like a huge Clapham Junction, with human creatures moving like trucks and carriages on cast-iron, conventional rails, which they can only leave at the risk of a destructive collision. And a proposal
