Maruja | Page 8

Carroll fell back a few steps and gazed at her with a troubled
face. "It is possible that you have misunderstood, Miss Saltonstall?" he
faltered. "Do you still think it is Amita that I"--he stopped and added
passionately, "Do you remember what I told you?--have you forgotten

last night?"
"Last night was--last night!" said Maruja, slightly lifting her shoulders.
"One makes love at night--one marries in daylight. In the music, in the
flowers, in the moonlight, one says everything; in the morning one has
breakfast--when one is not asked to have councils of war with captains
and commandantes. You would speak of my sister, Captain
Car-roll--go on. Dona Amita Carroll sounds very, very pretty. I shall
not object." She held out both her hands to him, threw her head back,
and smiled.
He seized her hands passionately. "No, no! you shall hear me--you
shall understand me. I love YOU, Maruja--you, and you alone. God
knows I can not help it--God knows I would not help it if I could. Hear
me. I will be calm. No one can hear us where we stand. I am not mad. I
am not a traitor! I frankly admired your sister. I came here to see her.
Beyond that, I swear to you, I am guiltless to her--to you. Even she
knows no more of me than that. I saw you, Maruja. From that moment I
have thought of nothing--dreamed of nothing else."
"That is--three, four, five days and one afternoon ago! You see, I
remember. And now you want--what?"
"To let me love you, and you only. To let me be with you. To let me
win you in time, as you should be won. I am not mad, though I am
desperate. I know what is due to your station and mine--even while I
dare to say I love you. Let me hope, Maruja, I only ask to hope."
She looked at him until she had absorbed all the burning fever of his
eyes, until her ears tingled with his passionate voice, and then--she
shook her head.
"It can not be, Carroll--no! never!"
He drew himself up under the blow with such simple and manly dignity
that her eyes dropped for the moment. "There is another, then?" he said,
sadly.

"There is no one I care for better than you. No! Do not be foolish. Let
me go. I tell you that because you can be nothing to me--you
understand, to ME. To my sister Amita, yes."
The young soldier raised his head coldly. "I have pressed you hard,
Miss Saltonstall--too hard, I know, for a man who has already had his
answer; but I did not deserve this. Good-by."
"Stop," she said, gently. "I meant not to hurt you, Captain Carroll. If I
had, it is not thus I would have done. I need not have met you here.
Would you have loved me the less if I had avoided this meeting?"
He could not reply. In the depths of his miserable heart, he knew that
he would have loved her the same.
"Come," she said, laying her hand softly on his arm, "do not be angry
with me for putting you back only five days to where you were when
you first entered our house. Five days is not much of happiness or
sorrow to forget, is it, Carroll--Captain Carroll?" Her voice died away
in a faint sigh. "Do not be angry with me, if-- knowing you could be
nothing more--I wanted you to love my sister, and my sister to love you.
We should have been good friends--such good friends."
"Why do you say, 'Knowing it could he nothing more'?" said Carroll,
grasping her hand suddenly. "In the name of Heaven, tell me what you
mean!"
"I mean I can not marry unless I marry one of my mother's race. That is
my mother's wish, and the will of her relations. You are an American,
not of Spanish blood."
"But surely this is not your determination?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "What would you? It is the determination
of my people."
"But knowing this"--he stopped; the quick blood rose to his face.

"Go on, Captain Carroll. You would say, Knowing this, why did I not
warn you? Why did I not say to you when we first met, You have come
to address my sister; do not fall in love with me--I can not marry a
foreigner."
"You are cruel, Maruja. But, if that is all, surely this prejudice can be
removed? Why, your mother married a foreigner--an American."
"Perhaps that is why," said the girl, quietly. She cast down her long
lashes, and with the point of her satin slipper smoothed out the soft
leaves of the clover at her feet. "Listen; shall I tell you the story of our
house? Stop!