A little later, as I was saying goodbye to Braulio, who was about to return to the mountain, he said to me: “Your friend is raging, and I am the cause of it. I wanted to be avenged for his ridicule of my dogs this morning.”
I asked him to explain what he meant.
“I thought,” Braulio went on, “that you would give him the best shot, and so I did not put a bullet in his rifle when he gave it to me to load.”
“You did very wrong,” I remarked.
“I won’t do it again; anyhow, not with him, for I don’t think he will want to hunt with us again. Ah, Señorita María has given me a thousand good wishes for Tránsito. I am so grateful that she is willing to be our bridesmaid. I do not know what to do to make her understand—you will have to tell her.”
“I will; don’t you trouble yourself about that.”
“Goodbye,” said he, frankly, taking my hand, though he did not fail to touch the brim of his hat at the same time; “goodbye ’till Sunday.”
He went out of the courtyard, calling his dogs with the sharp whistle which he made by pressing his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger.
XXVI
Up to that time, I had succeeded in preventing Carlos from taking me into his confidence about the proposal which, in an evil hour for him, had brought him to our house. But as soon as we were alone in my room, where he took me under the pretext of desiring to rest and read, I saw that he was going to put me in the difficult situation which I had been so much dreading, and from which up to that time I had escaped only by shrewd management. He stretched himself on my bed, complaining of the heat; and when I said I would have some fruit brought, he remarked that fruit did not agree with him since he had had the malarial fever. Then I went up to my shelves, asking him what he wanted to read.
“Oh, don’t let’s read anything,” he replied.
“Would you like to go and bathe in the river?”
“The sun has given me a headache.”
I offered him an alkali to relieve it.
“No, no,” he replied, refusing it, “it will go away.”
Then he struck his boots with the whip he held in his hand, and said: “I swear I’ll never hunt again. Caramba! to miss a shot like that!”
“Oh, everybody does sometimes.”
“Everybody? I’m the only one who ever missed a deer at that distance.”
After a moment’s silence, he said, looking about the room as if in search of something: “What have they done with the flowers which were here yesterday? They did not bring them back today.”
“If I had known that it would please you to see them here, I would have had them brought. You were not fond of flowers in Bogotá.”
I began turning over the leaves of a book which was lying open on the table.
“I never was,” replied Carlos; “but—don’t read, old fellow! Listen—sit down here by me, for I have something very interesting to tell you. Shut the door.”
There was no escape for me. I made an effort to command my features in the best way I could, resolved to conceal from Carlos, at all hazards, the immense stupidity of taking me into his confidence. But his father just then came to the door, and saved me from the torture which I was expecting.
“Carlos,” said Don Jerónimo, from the outside, “we need you out here.”
There was something in his tone that seemed to signify, “The affair is already far advanced.”
Carlos imagined that things were going on gloriously. At a bound he was on his feet, replying, “I will be there immediately,” then he went out.
If I had not then been pretending to read with the utmost indifference, he would probably have come up to me and said, smilingly, “In view of the surprise I am going to give you, you must pardon me for not having told you anything about it …” But I must have seemed to him as unconcerned at what was going on as I pretended to be; and that was a great gain.
From the footsteps of the two, I perceived that they were going into my father’s room.
Not desiring to expose myself again to the danger of having Carlos speak to me of his affairs, I went towards my mother’s apartments. María was in the sewing-room; from her chair fell the foamy skirt of her white muslin, here and there caught up with loops of blue ribbon; her hair, not yet braided, hung in curls round her shoulders. On the rug at her feet, Juan had gone to sleep, surrounded by his toys. She was lightly turning her head backward, as if to watch the child; the piece of lawn which she was sewing had fallen from her hands to the rug.
As soon as she heard steps, she lifted her eyes, brushed her hand across her temples to put back the hair that was not there, and, blushing, leaned forward hastily to pick up her sewing.
“Where is my mother?” I asked her, leaving off looking at her to admire the beauty of the sleeping boy.
“In papa’s room.”
Finding in my face what she timidly looked for, her lips began to smile as she said this. I kneeled down and wiped the forehead of the little fellow with my handkerchief.
“Oh, dear,” said María, “I did not realize that he had gone to sleep. I must put him to bed.”
She went out with Juan, but returned after a few moments and resumed her seat; I had placed my own near it. She was arranging the things in her work-box, which
