“By Jove!  I am miserable for life,” he thought when he suspected, as he sometimes did, that they two were in love.  “I’ll get myself killed in my next fight.  I can’t bear it.  But I won’t interfere.  I’ll do my duty as an honorable man.  Of course she understands me.”

But just at this point Clara failed to understand him.  It is asserted by some philosophers that women have less conscience about “cutting each other out,” breaking up engagements, etc., than men have in such matters.  Love-making and its results form such an all-important part of their existence, that they must occasionally allow success therein to overbear such vague, passionless ideas as principles, sentiments of honor, etc.  It is, we fear, highly probable that if Clara had been in love with Ralph, and had seen her chance of empire threatened by a rival, she would have come out of that calm innocence which now seemed to enfold her whole nature, and would have done such things as girls may do to avert catastrophes of the affections.  She now thought to herself, If he cares for me, how can he keep away from me when he sees Coronado making eyes at me?  She was a little vexed with him for behaving so, and was consequently all the sweeter to his rival.  This when Ralph would have risked his commission for a smile, and would have died to save her from a sorrow!

Presently this slightly coquettish, yet very good and lovely little being—­this seraph from one of Fra Angelica’s pictures, endowed with a frailty or two of humanity—­found herself the heroine of a trying scene.  Coronado hastened it; he judged her ready to fall into his net; he managed the time and place for the capture.  The train had been ascending for some hours, and had at last reached a broad plateau, a nearly even floor of sandstone, covered with a carpet of thin earth, the whole noble level bare to the eye at once, without a tree or a thicket to give it detail.  It was a scene of tranquillity and monotony; no rains ever disturbed or remoulded the tabulated surface of soil; there, as distinct as if made yesterday, were the tracks of a train which had passed a year before.

“Shall we take a gallop?” said Coronado.  “No danger of ambushes here.”

Clara’s eyes sparkled with youth’s love of excitement, and the two horses sprang off at speed toward the centre of the plateau.  After a glorious flight of five minutes, enjoyed for the most part in silence, as such swift delights usually are, they dropped into a walk two miles ahead of the wagons.

“That was magnificent,” Clara of course said, her face flushed with pleasure and exercise.

“You are wonderfully handsome,” observed Coronado, with an air of thinking aloud, which disguised the coarse directness of the flattery.  In fact, he was so dazzled by her brilliant color, the sunlight in her disordered curls, and the joyous sparkling of her hazel eyes, that he spoke with an ingratiating honesty.