Again he paused, and Myra could not restrain her impatience.
"Well? Go on. Do you mean to tell me Tony agreed?" she asked. "Or
have you to pause every now and again to invent a story?"
"To do him justice, I must tell you that Standish did not at once
agree," answered Don Carlos, tossing away the butt of his cigarette.
"His idea was that Cojuelo had only been bluffing, and that it was
merely a question of offering him enough money. Incidentally, you were
right in your estimate, Myra. He said he would pay anything up to ten
thousand pounds as a ransom for you. When I told him Cojuelo would not
part with you for one hundred thousand pounds, he said he'd see him
damned first before he'd pay it. So now you know your market value, as
rated by Mr. Antony Standish, who has an income, I understand, of
something like a hundred thousand pounds a year!"
"So because Tony wasn't idiot enough to agree to pay more than ten
thousand pounds as ransom, you are trying to make out he agreed to
resign me and leave me to the tender mercies of Cojuelo?"
Don Carlos shook his head and lit another cigarette with exasperating
deliberation.
"Dear Myra, it may wound your pride, but he has resigned you," he said.
"His love did not stand the acid test. I told him it was not a
question of money, that Cojuelo had fallen madly in love with you and
was afire with desire to make you his own, but thought it might bring
him bad luck to take a girl who was betrothed to another man, unless
the other man agreed to surrender her to him, or, at least, give her
her freedom. Mr. Standish protested that nothing would persuade him to
surrender you to Cojuelo."
"And yet you have said he offered to give me up?"
"Hear me out, Myra. I did not say he offered to give you up. I said
he was willing to surrender you--which is a distinction with a
difference. When he protested that nothing would persuade him to
surrender you to Cojuelo, I reminded him that the bandit had threatened
to have him scourged and branded with hot irons, that he was absolutely
at the devil's mercy, and I played on his fears. I warned him that
Cojuelo was a man of his word and would surely torture him unless he
renounced you. He quailed at that, and after some hesitation agreed
that he had no alternative but to accept his freedom and leave you
here."