What were the conventions of the world to him? This other woman had money at her own command.He could not make it his own because he could not marry her, but he fancied that it might be possible to bring her so far under his control as to make the money almost as good as his own.Mr Wharton's money was very hard to reach, and would be as hard to reach,--perhaps harder,--when Mr Wharton was dead, as now, during his life.He had said a good deal to the lady since the interview of which a report has been given.She had declared herself to be afraid of Bios.She did not in the least doubt that great things might be ultimately done with Bios, but she did not quite see the way with her small capital,--thus humbly did she speak of her wealth,--to be one of those who should take the initiative in the matter.Bios evidently required a great deal of advertisement, and Lizzie Eustace had a short-sighted objection to expend what money she had saved on the hoardings of London.Then he opened to her the glories of Guatemala, not contenting himself with describing the certainty of twenty per cent, but enlarging on the luxurious happiness of life in a country so golden, so green, so gorgeous, and so grand.It had been the very apple of the eye of the old Spaniards.In Guatemala, he said, Cortez and Pizzaro had met and embraced.They might have done so for anything as far as Lizzie Eustace knew to the contrary.And here our hero took advantage of his name.Don Diego di Lopez had been the first to raise the banner of freedom in Guatemala when the kings of Spain became tyrants to their American subjects.All is fair in love and war, and Lizzie amidst the hard business of her life still loved a dash of romance.Yet, he was about to change the scene and try his fortune in that golden, green, and gorgeous country.'You will take your wife of course,' Lady Eustace had said.Then Lopez had smiled, and shrugging his shoulders had left the room.
It was certainly the fact that she could not eat him.Other men before Lopez have had to pick up what courage they could in their attacks upon women by remembering that fact.She had flirted with him in a very pleasant way, mixing up her prettiness and her percentages in a manner that was peculiar to herself.He did not know her, and he knew that he did not know her;--but still there was the chance.She had thrown his wife more than once in his face, after the fashion women do when they are wooed by married men since the days of Cleopatra downwards.But he had taken that simply as encouragement.He had already let her know that his wife was a vixen who troubled his life.Lizzie had given him her sympathy, and had almost given him a tear.'But I am not a man to be broken-hearted because I have made a mistake,' said Lopez.
'Marriage vows are very well, but they shall never bind me to misery.' 'Marriage vows are not very well.They may be very ill,' Lizzie had replied, remembering certain passages in her own life.
There was no doubt about her money, and certainly she could not eat him.The fortnight allowed him by the San Juan Company had nearly gone by when he called at the little house in the little street, resolved to push his fortune in that direction without fear and without hesitation.Mrs Leslie again took her departure, leaving them together, and Lizzie allowed her friend to go, although the last words that Lopez had spoken had been, as he thought, a fair prelude to the words he intended to speak to-day.'And what do you think of it?' he said, taking both her hands in his.
'Think of what?'
'Of our Spanish venture.'
'Have you given up Bios, my friend?'
'No; certainly not,' said Lopez, seating himself beside her.'Ihave not taken the other half share, but I have kept my old venture in the scheme.I believe in Bios, you know.'
'Ah;--it is nice to believe.'
'But I believe more firmly in the country to which I am going.'
'You are going then?'
'Yes; my friend;--I am going.The allurements are too strong to be resisted.Think of that climate and of this.' He probably had not heard of the mosquitoes of Central America when he so spoke.'Remember that an income that gives you comfort here will there produce every luxury which wealth can purchase.It is to be a king there, or to be but very common among commoners here.'
'And yet England is a dear old country.'
'Have you found it so? Think of the wrongs which you have endured;--of the injuries you have suffered.'
'Yes indeed.' For Lizzie Eustace had gone through hard days in her time.
'I certainly will fly from such a country to those golden shores on which man may be free and unshackled.'
'And your wife?'
'Oh, Lizzie!' It was the first time he had called her Lizzie, and she was apparently neither shocked nor abashed.Perhaps he thought too much of this, not knowing how many men had called her Lizzie in her time.'Do not you at least understand that a man or a woman may undergo a tie, and yet be justified in disregarding it altogether?'
'Oh yes;--if there has been bigamy, or divorce, or anything of that kind.' Now Lizzie had convicted her second husband of bigamy, and had freed herself after that fashion.
'To h--with their prurient laws,' said Lopez, rising suddenly from his chair.'I will neither appeal to them nor will I obey them.And I expect from you as little subservience as I myself am prepared to pay.Lizzy Eustace, will you go with me to that land of the sun, Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
Will you dare to escape with me from the cold conventionalities, from the miserable thraldom of this country bound in swaddling cloths? Lizzie Eustace, if you will say the word, I will take you to that land of glorious happiness.'
But Lizzie Eustace had 4,000 pounds a year and a balance at her banker's.'Mr Lopez,' she said.
'What answer have you to make me?'
'Mr Lopez, I think you must be a fool.'
He did at last succeed in getting himself into the street, and at any rate she had not eaten him.