Juanita Savage

“ Dread gripped Myra's heart as Don Carlos carried her into the bedroom and set her down gently on the side of the bed. Every vestige of colour had drained out of her lovely face and she was trembling violently.
"Do not be afraid, Myra darling," Don Carlos murmured caressingly. "I can be gentle as any woman, and would not harm my precious treasure. Are you afraid that the sight of you will be so enticing to your lover when he takes off your dressing-gown that he will not be able to tear himself away from you?" ”

“ I confess I tried to make you feel jealous, and I trust I succeeded?"
"I am not going to tell you," said Myra, raising her eyelids to flash another alluring and provocative glance at him. "Unless there is love, there can hardly be jealousy. If I were desperately in love with a man who did not care for me, or pretended he did not, I should not have the heart to try to make any other man fall in love with me. How can you expect me to believe you are really in love with me, Carlos, when I see you constantly making love to other women?" ”

“ Why not suggest to him, Myra, that he can best show his gratitude by surrendering to me his greatest pride and treasure—you?"
"Your audacity is only equalled by your conceit," Myra commented. "Let me warn you——"
"Let me warn you, you siren, that I shall go to any lengths to win you," interrupted Don Carlos with sudden passion. "This morning's incident was a warning to prove to you I am in earnest. Dios! why do you torture me so? At times you make me hate you almost as much as I love you!" ”

“ My soul is enchanted, enraptured!"
"Away with your blarney!" exclaimed Myra, half-laughingly, half-impatiently, but conscious of a queer little thrill as she met his smiling glance. "Do you pay every woman you meet such fulsome and extravagant compliments, señor?"
"No, señorita, I am a connoisseur," answered Don Carlos, his tone quite serious but his black eyes twinkling. "And no compliment could be extravagant if applied to you, dear lady. One would have to be a great poet to find words to do justice to your beauty and charm." ”

“ And let me remind you that I have made you several promises."
"Several?" repeated Myra, raising her eyebrows inquiringly.
"Yes, you may remember that the first time we danced together I promised to awaken your heart and fire it with the passion which now consumes me," replied Don Carlos quietly. "I have promised several times since to make you my own, to make you surrender to the call of love and confess yourself conquered."
"Those, I presume, were promises made to yourself," Myra retorted lightly. "We all promise ourselves things, and hope for things, we know at heart we shall never get." ”

“ Oh, surely, surely you can't be going to die! What can I do? Oh, my dear, my dear—"
Her voice failed her, she tried to cry out for help but sobs choked her utterance. Don Carlos's eyes fluttered open for a moment then closed again.
"Kiss me, Myra darling," he moaned faintly. "Kiss me, my sweet love."
Quivering with emotion, Myra bent down and pressed her trembling lips to his—and immediately found herself encircled by two strong arms, found the eyes of the "dying" man open and glowing with life and ardour, found herself crushed in a close embrace, and being kissed, and kissed, and kissed. ”

“ Mingled with her resentment was something akin to fear, the haunting dread that her ordeal of the previous night might be a prelude to something worse. The hot flush of shame stained her fair face again as she realised she had been on the very verge of surrendering herself.
"I hate him! I hate him!" Myra told herself as she dressed. "I'll kill myself rather than confess I love him, and let him gloat over his conquest.... What should I do? Should I promise to marry him on condition that he takes me back to-day, and then denounce him to the authorities when we reach the Castle? ”

“ Standish that I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you, and that I mean to take you from him by hook or by crook?"
"I think you must be crazy!" exclaimed Myra, at heart just a little scared, but more than a little fascinated. "Surely even in the wilds of Spain it is considered dishonourable to attempt to make love to a girl who is betrothed to another man?
"Not if one is prepared to fight the other man," Don Carlos replied, with a sudden smile. "I am quite prepared to fight for you, believe me. As for making love, dear lady, I have not even yet begun to make love to you in earnest. ”

“ Then suddenly she struggled and broke from him, her lovely face aflame, her bosom heaving tempestuously, her breath coming and going in sobbing gasps.
"How dare you! Oh, how dare you!" she panted. "You brute! You brute!
I could kill you!"
She dropped limply into a chair and covered her burning face with her hands. She was trembling, her heart was throbbing as if it would burst, and her brain was in a turmoil. Don Carlos stood silent for a few moments, his dark eyes still aflame with ardour as he looked down at Myra. ”

“ She felt as if she were suffocating, and again she began to struggle involuntarily after a few minutes as he drew her down with him on to the couch.
"You are stifling me," she panted. "Let me go."
Don Carlos released her at once, and she rose to her feet, pressing her hands instinctively to her heaving bosom, as if to try to still the wild throbbing of her heart. Her lovely face was flushed, her breath was coming and going in sobbing gasps, her eyes, dark with emotion, were feverishly bright, and her whole body seemed afire.
"Let me go now, please," she added gaspingly. "I can bear no more. ”

“ A promise is a promise, you know. You won't throw me over and make me look and feel an ass, will you, if you should happen to meet someone you think you like better than me? You've promised to be my wife, you know."
"Yes, I know, Tony, but I also know you are too much of a sportsman to hold me to my promise if I should happen to fall in love with another man," Myra responded. "That isn't in the least likely to happen, Tony dear, and I am truly trying to love you in the way a girl should love the man she has promised to marry, as I have already told you. ”

“ Some odd instinct or intuition told her that history had repeated itself, and it came hardly as a surprise to find a half-sheet of notepaper tucked into her nightdress close to her heart. With fingers that trembled slightly, Myra unfolded the note and read:
"Give me your heart and love, my wife, and I will devote my life to you. If you have no love, show no mercy."
Myra read the words again and again, sorely puzzled to decide what exactly they meant, wondering, incidentally, why Don Carlos had not awakened her to whisper what he had to say instead of leaving a note on her breast. ”

“ Myra trilled out a laugh, her blue eyes still smiling at him.
"Thank you, señor, for these few kind words," she said. "I expect you have been saying something of the same sort to my aunt?"
"Yes, Myra, Don Carlos has been telling me that mine is the type of beauty he has always most admired, and that I seem to have discovered not only the secret of perpetual youth, but the art of growing old gracefully," Lady Fermanagh told her smilingly. "I begin to suspect him of being Irish instead of Spanish—for how can one grow old with perpetual youth, I ask you? ”

“ Myra protested. "You would surely not be guilty of such devilish cruelty!"
"El Diablo Cojuelo is capable of any devilry," Don Carlos retorted grimly. "Would you sacrifice yourself to save Standish if he were willing to accept your sacrifice?"
"I suppose I should have no alternative," replied Myra, after a pause.
"But Tony would not accept my sacrifice. He is an Englishman, and will
never be scared into surrendering me to one whom he believes to be a
Spanish brigand and outlaw. He loves me."
"Unless I am much mistaken, he has not even begun to know the meaning of love," said Don Carlos. ”

“ I like you, Tony, and think you are rather a dear, but I want you to understand I'm not in love, and you will be buying me. I'm selling myself simply because I love all the good things of life, because you can pay for them, and because Aunt Clarissa keeps badgering me to marry and I am dependent on her for practically everything."
"You have turned down other fellows as rich as I am who were crazy about you, and other men much more attractive, so you must love me a little, Myra dear," Tony had responded. "I am going to make you love me a lot." ”

“ Don Carlos cried. "I was desolated when you refused to dance with me last night, and you put me to the torture later in the conservatory. I wanted to murder the other man, the one in particular on whom you bestowed your favours."
"Dear me! What a bloodthirsty creature! Incidentally, are you not still attempting to make love indirectly? I suppose making love has become a sort of second nature, and you do not know you are breaking your promise?"
"I stand rebuked, sweet lady, and crave your pardon," said Don Carlos. "Never yet have I consciously broken a promise. ”

“ Don Carlos sighed lugubriously and turned up his eyes to the ceiling.
"I am spurned!" he lamented, as if soliloquising. "I am desolated! The most wonderfully beautiful girl in the world rebuffs me and calls me a cad when I offer her my heart and the love for which many another woman would barter her very soul! My Myra thinks I am the most exasperating and impudent man in the world! Condenacion! Still, I must be unique in one respect!" He lowered his eyes to look at Myra again. ”

“ I want to hold you in my arms, Myra mine, clasped close to my breast, to set your darling heart afire with burning kisses, to kiss the heart out of you then kiss it back again all aflame with love and longing. Myra, darling, I love you as I have never loved before, and I want you for my wife. ”

“ I was so afraid you had not forgiven me for being so rude to you, and dreaded lest you had decided to have nothing further to do with such an ungracious person as Myra Rostrevor."
"Sweet lady, I should dismiss such a thought as treason, not to say blasphemy," Don Carlos responded gallantly. "Even when you are ungracious, if ever, you are always the most adorable and beautiful woman in the world." ”

“ Did Don Carlos help?"
"Don Carlos showed me the way to open the secret door," answered Myra.
"Aunt Clarissa, nothing will induce me to marry Tony Standish now."
"But you must, you must!" insisted her aunt passionately. "It is the only way of saving yourself. Think how you are placed, and what a ghastly tragedy it would be if it became known that you had surrendered yourself to a brigand. I will see Don Carlos at once, beg him, for your sake——"
"No! no!" interrupted Myra, springing to her feet. "I will not permit it, aunt. On no account must you appeal to Don Carlos. I will see him myself. ”

“ Here in my mountain eyrie I am Cojuelo, the outlaw, acknowledging no laws save those I make myself."
"I still do not understand," remarked Myra, with perplexity in her blue eyes. "Do you mean to say you lead a double life and occasionally masquerade as a brigand, without anyone knowing that Don Carlos and Cojuelo are one and the same? Is there no one aware of your identity?"
"Many of my people are aware of my identity, but none would betray me, even if put to the torture," replied Don Carlos. "Those who are in the secret vastly enjoy the way in which I hoodwink the authorities. ”

“ Why should there be one law for the man and another for the woman? It isn't fair!"
"My dear Myra, do try to preserve some sense of proportion," said Lady Fermanagh gently. "Admittedly it was quite wrong of Don Carlos to make passionate love to you, knowing you were betrothed to Tony, but, as I have told you repeatedly, he was probably only following the custom of his race and did not expect to be taken seriously in the first instance."
"And is it an unheard-of thing in Spain for a betrothed girl to play the part of coquette, and to flirt with the men who make love to her?" ”

“ My love is a raging torrent which will overwhelm you and sweep you off your feet, a raging fire which will set your heart aflame in sympathy."
"I'm thinking, Don Carlos, that you must be a bit Irish yourself to mix up torrents and flames, and the sooner you let the torrent put your fires out the better I'll be pleased," said Myra, with forced lightness, after a pause, during which she decided it would be best to treat the whole matter as a joke. ”

“ Don Carlos responded. "The pistol was loaded with blank cartridges. I deliberately left it within the reach of Standish, to see if he would have the nerve to use it, and to see how you would behave if he fired at me. You must admit, Myra darling, that you showed more concern for me than for Standish, thereby proving that you love me best. Dear heart, I shall treasure the memory of the first kiss you gave voluntarily."
"I would kiss any ruffian who begged me to do so if I thought he was dying," said Myra. "You have no reason to flatter yourself on the success of your play-acting trickery." ”

“ After all, as I have told you, men of the Latin races make love almost indiscriminately by way of paying a compliment, and pretty women in Spain, Italy, or France, would feel quite insulted if the men to whom they were introduced did not profess to be hopelessly in love with them. If you had lived abroad, Myra, you would feel flattered rather than annoyed."
"Maybe—and maybe not," said Myra, with a toss of her red-gold head. "If you are right, then Don Carlos is merely trying to amuse himself at my expense. I have no use for a professional philanderer who imagines that no woman can resist him. ”

“ Don Carlos relaxed his hold, but restrained Myra when she would have risen from the couch.
"Myra, darling, why do you persist in resisting me and refusing to listen to the call of love?" he asked gently. "Do you realise that your resistance is but adding fuel to the fires of my passion? You drove me almost mad when you coquetted with me aboard the yacht, made me crazy with desire, then laughed at me. I am but human, and my longing for you is not to be denied. ”

“ Would you?"
"I promise you that El Diablo Cojuelo shall not steal you away from me even if he captures you, señorita," Don Carlos replied. "I am glad you are undismayed, and again I assure you I am honoured and flattered that you have accepted my invitation to——"
"I regarded it more as a challenge than an invitation," interposed Myra.
"Really! Then I am more than honoured by your acceptance of the challenge," resumed Don Carlos, his face crinkling into a smile. "I wonder why you are condescending to be so gracious to me to-night, Myra. Do I understand I am forgiven?" ”

“ We do not understand ourselves, and if men understood us we should cease to interest or attract them."
"Yes, I suppose so, Lady Fermanagh," agreed Tony, with a disconsolate shake of his head. "But it would be rather awful to marry a woman who puzzled one all the time. I couldn't make Myra out at all to-day, and can't think what can have upset her."
"Remember, dear boy, that Myra is Irish and has the Celtic temperament," said Lady Fermanagh. ”

“ I'm not afraid of him, and I don't understand why I have been upsetting myself so much," exclaimed Myra, impulsively starting to her feet. "I'll get even with him. I'll go to the Cavendish's dance after all. Don Carlos is almost sure to be there, and I may get an opportunity to punish him for his impertinence."
"Myra, I do wish you would drop this folly," said her aunt. "You must realise you are running grave risks and imperilling your own happiness. It seems to me, my dear, that as well as trifling with Don Carlos, you are trifling with your own heart, and you are not playing fair with Tony." ”