“Yes,” she replied, without looking at me, and prolonging her occupation with the box.
“What did she say to you? Leave that now, and let us talk seriously.”
She still looked for something on the floor, and at last, assuming an air of affected gravity, though she could not hide the vivid blush on her cheeks or the brilliance of her eyes, she answered, “Many things.”
“What things?”
“Those which you agreed she should tell me.”
“Tell me what my mother said to you.”
“She did not give me permission to repeat them; but what I answered her, that certainly I can tell.”
“Very well, what was it?”
“I told her … no, I can’t tell that either.”
“But you will tell me some time, won’t you?”
“Yes; but not today.”
“My mother has informed me that you are minded to answer him as you ought, so that he will understand that you fittingly appreciate the honor he does you.”
She looked steadily at me then, without replying.
“That is the way it should be,” I went on.
She lowered her eyes and continued silent, absorbed, apparently, in arranging the needles in order upon her needle-cushion.
“María, didn’t you hear me?” I added.
“Yes.”
Again she met my eyes, which I could not take from her face. Then I saw tears glistening on her lashes.
“Why, what are you crying for?” I asked.
“I am not crying. Why, did I cry?”
She took my handkerchief and hastily wiped her eyes.
“They have caused you suffering with this, haven’t they? If it makes you sad, do not let us talk of it.”
“Oh no; let us talk.”
“Is it a great trial to you to make up your mind to listen to what Carlos is going to say to you today?”
“I must try to please mamma. But she promised me that I should not be alone. You will be there, won’t you?”
“Why should I? How could he speak to you?”
“Well, you must be as near as possible.”
She stood in a listening attitude.
“Mamma is coming,” she continued, putting her hand in mine, and allowing me to press it to my lips—a favor she was accustomed to grant me at parting when she wished to make my happiness complete. My mother came in, and María, on the point of going, said to me, “The bath?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“And the orangeade when you are there?”
“Yes.”
My eyes must have put as much tenderness into these replies as my heart desired to do, for she, pleased with my feigning, smiled at my answers.
XXVII
That afternoon, before the ladies went out to make coffee, as they always did when there were guests in the house, I turned the conversation to the boys’ fishing, and told why I had promised to witness the baiting of the hooks that day in the ravine. My proposal to choose that direction for a walk was accepted. Only María looked at me as if to say, “Can’t it be helped, then?”
We were crossing the garden. It had been necessary to wait for María, and also for my sister, who had gone to find the reason for María’s delay. I gave my arm to my mother. Emma politely declined that of Carlos, under pretext of having to lead one of the children; but María accepted it, almost trembling, and as she placed her hand upon it she turned to look for me; I could only signify to her that she must not hesitate.
We had reached that point on the shore where, in the hollow of the meadow, carpeted with fine grass, here and there black rocks thrust themselves up spotted with white moss.
Carlos’s voice dropped into a confidential tone; till then he had undoubtedly been rallying his courage, and now began to draw off to one side so as to get a good opportunity to speak. María tried to draw back again; in her glance at my mother and at me there was almost a prayer; my only resource was not to look at her. She must have seen in my face something which revealed to her the torment I was enduring, since I saw in her countenance, pale as it was, a frown of determination wholly unusual in her. From Carlos’s appearance, I was sure that the moment had come when I wished to hear what was said. She began to speak, and as her voice, though tremulous, was more distinct than he seemed to desire, my ears caught these broken phrases:
“It would have been better if you had spoken only to them—I deeply appreciate the honor which you—This refusal—”
Carlos was confused. María had released his arm, and when she finished speaking, began to play with Juan’s curls. The boy had laid hold of her skirt and was pointing out to her a bunch of adorotes hanging from a neighboring tree.
I doubt if the scene, which I have described as exactly as I could, was taken at its true significance by Don Jerónimo, who, with his hands in the pockets of his blue jacket, came up just then with my father. For the latter, it was as if he had heard everything.
María joined herself dexterously to our group, starting to help Juan pick some mulberries which he could not reach. After I had gathered the fruit to give to the child, she said to me, as she took it, “What can I do, not to go back with him?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
But I went up to Carlos and asked him to go down with me a little farther through the meadow to see a beautiful pool; and I proposed, with as much naturalness as it was possible for me to assume, that we should come to bathe in it the next morning. It was a picturesque spot, but decidedly Carlos saw little of the beauty of the trees and the flowering canes which dipped themselves in the foam of the water, like garlands torn off by the wind.
As the sun went
