Maria (GB English)
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–But if you do, if I have been light in believing what I have believed, what will she think of me?
–He will think you less ill, than to consider yourself capable of a fickleness and inconsistency more odious than anything else.
–You are right up to a certain point; but I beg you will not tell Maria anything of what we have just spoken of. I have made a mistake, which has perhaps made me suffer more than her, and I must remedy it; I promise you I will remedy it; I demand only two days to do it properly.
–Well," he said, getting up to leave, "are you going out today?
–Yes, ma'am.
–Where are you going?
I am going to pay Emigdio his welcome visit; and it is indispensable, for I sent word to him yesterday with his father's butler to expect me to lunch to-day.
–But you'll be back early.
–At four or five o'clock.
–Come and eat here.
–Are you satisfied with me again?
–Of course not," he replied, smiling. Till the evening, then: you will give the ladies my best regards, from me and the girls.
Chapter XVIII
I was ready to go, when Emma came into my room. She was surprised to see me with a laughing countenance.
–Where are you going so happy," he asked me.
–I wish I didn't have to go anywhere. To see Emigdio, who complains of my inconstancy in every tone, whenever I meet him.
–How unfair!
– he exclaimed with a laugh. Unfair you?
–What are you laughing at?
–Poor thing!
–No, no: you're laughing at something else.
–That's just it," said he, taking a comb from my bath-table, and coming up to me. Let me comb your hair for you, for you know, Mr. Constant, that one of your friend's sisters is a pretty girl. Pity," she continued, combing the hair with the help of her graceful hands, "that Master Ephraim has grown a little pale these days, for the buguenas can't imagine manly beauty without fresh colours on their cheeks. But if Emigdio's sister were aware of....
–You are very talkative today.
–Yes? and you're very cheerful. Look in the mirror and tell me if you don't look good.
–What a visit!
– I exclaimed, hearing Maria's voice calling my sister.
–Really. How much better it would be to go for a stroll along the peaks of the boqueron de Amaime and enjoy the… great and solitary landscape, or to walk through the mountains like wounded cattle, shooing away mosquitoes, without prejudice to the fact that May is full of nuches…, poor thing, it is impossible.
–Maria is calling you," I interrupted.
–I know what it's for.
–What for?
–To help him do something he shouldn't do.
–Can you tell which one?
–She is waiting for me to go and fetch flowers to replace these," said she, pointing to those in the vase on my table; "and if I were her, I should not put another one in there.
–If you only knew…
–And if you knew…
My father, who was calling me from his room, interrupted the conversation, which, if continued, could have frustrated what I had been trying to do since my last interview with my mother.
As I entered my father's room, he was looking at the window of a beautiful pocket watch, and he said:
–It is an admirable thing; it is undoubtedly worth the thirty pounds. Turning at once to me, he added:
–This is the watch I ordered from London; look at it.
–It's much better than the one you use," I observed, examining it.
–But the one I use is very accurate, and yours is very small: you must give it to one of the girls and take this one for yourself.
Without leaving me time to thank him, he added:
–Are you going to Emigdio's house? Tell his father that I can prepare the guinea-pasture for us to fatten together; but that his cattle must be ready on the fifteenth of the next.
I immediately returned to my room to take my pistols. Mary, from the garden, at the foot of my window, was handing Emma a bunch of montenegros, marjoram, and carnations; but the most beautiful of these, for their size and luxuriance, was on her lips.
–Good morning, Maria," I said, hurrying to receive the flowers.
She, paling instantly, returned the greeting curtly, and the carnation fell from her mouth. She handed me the flowers, dropping some at my feet, which she picked up and placed within my reach when her cheeks were again flushed.
–Do you want to exchange all these for the carnation you had on your lips," I said as I received the last ones?
–I stepped on it," he replied, lowering his head to look for it.
–Thus trodden, I will give you all these for him.
He remained in the same attitude without answering me.
–Do you allow me to pick it up?
He then bent down to take it and handed it to me without looking at me.
Meanwhile Emma pretended to be completely distracted by the new flowers.
I shook Mary's hand with which I was handing over the desired carnation, saying to her:
–Thank you, thank you! See you this afternoon.
She raised her eyes to look at me with the most rapturous expression that tenderness and modesty, reproach and tears, can produce in a woman's eyes.
Chapter XIX
I had walked a little more than a league, and was already struggling to open the door that gave access to the mangones of Emigdio's father's hacienda. Having overcome the resistance of the mouldy hinges and shaft, and the even more tenacious resistance of the pylon, made of a large stone, which, suspended from the roof with a bolt, gave torment to passers-by by keeping that singular device closed, I considered myself fortunate not to have got stuck in the stony mire, the respectable age of which was known by the colour of the stagnant water.