So! That is what you meant
a moment ago. That is why you refuse my embraces. No, no! Other
women have feared me and I have laughed in their hair as they tore
at my arms, but you--you will be my wife, and all Mexico shall bow
at your feet." He checked her denial with a gesture. "Wait until I
tell you the vision I have seen during these days of my despair. I
see Mexico made whole by my hands; a land of peace and plenty; a
people with one name upon their lips--the name of Longorio the
Deliverer; and you as the first lady of them all. You know me for
a man of tremendous ability in every line. Well, I know myself,
too. I have measured myself carefully, and I have no weakness.
There is no other like me. Pancho Gomez? Bah! He is a red-handed
bandit of no culture. Candeleria, his chief? The idol of the
ignorant and a dreamer of no force. Potosi? He is President today,
but what of tomorrow? Those who surround him are weaklings, and he
stumbles toward oblivion. Who will succeed him? Who will issue
from the coming struggle as the dominant figure of Mexico? Who but
that military genius who checks the Yankee hordes and saves the
fatherland? I am he.
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