“Yes, capm, out of Fair Haven,” he said.  “Been in the coastin’ ‘n’ Wes’ Injy trade.  Had ‘n unlucky time out las’ few years.  Had a schuner burnt in port, ‘n’ lost a brig at sea.  Pooty much broke me up.  Wife ‘n’ dahter gone into th’ oyster-openin’ business.  Thought I’d try my han’ at openin’ gold mines in Californy.  Jined a caravan at Fort Leavenworth, ‘n’ lost my reckonin’s back here a ways.”

We must return to love matters.  However amazing it may be that a man who has no conscience should nevertheless have a heart, such appears to have been the case with that abnormal creature Coronado.  The desert had made him take a strong liking to Clara, and now that he had a rival at hand he became impassioned for her.  He began to want to marry her, not alone for the sake of her great fortune, but also for her own sake.  Her beauty unfolded and blossomed wonderfully before his ardent eyes; for he was under that mighty glamour of the emotions which enables us to see beauty in its completeness; he was favored with the greatest earthly second-sight which is vouchsafed to mortals.

Only in a measure, however; the money still counted for much with him.  He had already decided what he would do with the Munoz fortune when he should get it.  He would go to New York and lead a life of frugal extravagance, economical in comforts (as we understand them) and expensive in pleasures.  New York, with its adjuncts of Saratoga and Newport, was to him what Paris is to many Americans.  In his imagination it was the height of grandeur and happiness to have a box at the opera, to lounge in Broadway, and to dance at the hops of the Saratoga hotels.  New Mexico! he would turn his back on it; he would never set eyes on its dull poverty again.  As for Clara?  Well, of course she would share in his gayeties; was not that enough for any reasonable woman?

But here was this stumbling-block of a Thurstane.  In the presence of a handsome rival, who, moreover, had started first in the race, slow was far from being sure.  Coronado had discovered, by long experience in flirtation and much intelligent meditation upon it, that, if a man wants to win a woman, he must get her head full of him.  He decided, therefore, that at the first chance he would give Clara distinctly to understand how ardently he was in love with her, and so set her to thinking especially of him, and of him alone.  Meantime, he looked at her adoringly, insinuated compliments, performed little services, walked his horse much by her side, did his best in conversation, and in all ways tried to outshine the Lieutenant.