"But I must be sure. To-morrow I shall see that she understands." Gore was aghast. "I earnestly beg you to abstain from doing that," he begged, too anxious to prevent Don Joaquin's interference to risk precipitating it by showing the anger he felt. "Perhaps you no longer wish to marry her. If so, it would be advisable to reduce your intercourse to common civilities--" "Sir," Gore interrupted, "I cannot allow you to go on putting any case founded on such an assumption as that of my no longer wishing to marry your daughter. I wish it more every day ..." The young man had a right to be angry, and he was angry, and perhaps was not unwilling to show it. But it was necessary that he should for every reason be moderate in letting his resentment appear. To have a loud quarrel with a prospective father-in-law is seldom a measure likely to help the suitor's wishes. He in his turn was interrupted. "Then," said Don Joaquin, "it is time you told her so." "I do not think so. I think it's _not_ time, and that to tell her so now would greatly injure my chance of success." "I will answer for your success. I shall myself speak to her. I shall tell her that you wish to marry her, and that I have, some time ago, given my full consent." Gore was well aware that Don Joaquin could not "answer for his success." It was horrible to him to think of Mariquita being bullied, and he was sure that her father intended to bully her. Anything would be better than that. He was intensely earnest in his wish to succeed; it was that earnestness that made him willing to be patient; but he was, if possible, even more intensely determined that the poor girl should not be tormented and dragooned by her tyrannical father. That, he would risk a great deal to prevent, as far as his own power went. "I most earnestly beg you not to do that," he said in a very low voice. "But I intend to do it. If you choose to say that you do not, after all, wish to marry her, then I will merely suggest that you should leave us." "I have just told you the exact contrary--" "Then, I shall tell Mariquita so to-morrow, stating that your proposal meets with my full consent, and that in view of her prolonged intimacy with you, her consent is taken by me for granted. I do take it for granted." "I wish I could. But I cannot. Sir, I still entreat you to abandon this intention of yours." "Only on condition that you make the proposal yourself without any further delay." From this decision the obstinate old father would not recede. The discussion continued for some time, but he seemed to grow only more fixed in his intention, and certainly he became more acerbated in temper. Gore was sure that if he were allowed to take up the matter with his daughter, it would be with even more harshly dictatorial tyranny than had seemed probable at first.