CHAPTER VIII.
When Coronado proposed to Clara, she was for a moment stricken dumb with astonishment and with something like terror.
Her first idea was that she must take him; that the mere fact of a man asking for her gave him a species of right over her; that there was no such thing possible as answering, No.

She sat looking at Coronado with a helpless, timorous air, very much as a child looks at his father, when the father, switching his rattan, says, "Come with me." On recovering herself a little, her first words--uttered slowly, in a tone of surprise and of involuntary reproach--were, "Oh, Coronado! I did not expect this." "Can't you answer me ?" he asked in a voice which was honestly tremulous with emotion.

"Can't you say yes ?" "Oh, Coronado!" repeated Clara, a good deal touched by his agitation.
"Can't you ?" he pleaded.

Repetitions, in such cases, are so natural and so potent.
"Let me think, Coronado," she implored.

"I can't answer you now.