Proceeding through a thicket of evergreen oaks, the King soon found himself in a labyrinth of walks; he chose one at a venture, and fortune destined it should lead him to the entrance of a bower, where stood the fair subject of his thoughts, occupied in reading a letter.
At sight of him, roseate blushes succeeded by entrancing smiles, passed over her face. “Don Fabian!” she exclaimed, “for Heaven’s sake what brings you here?”
The question was unlucky, as it was the only one perhaps, which the King could not answer satisfactorily to himself, he looked at her, hesitated, felt embarrassed, and at length said timidly, “to ask forgiveness I believe, for the fault I committed yesterday.”
Donna Gonsalva now remembered that she had left him in anger. “So then, you have the boldness to encrease that fault by following me into a place, where if you were to be seen, it might cost you your life; me, my reputation and peace of mind!—for pity’s sake, do not stay here—I expect—I expect one of my relations every instant—should he see you—a stranger—-go, for Heaven’s sake go!”—As the beautiful Portuguese spoke, she unconsciously grasped his arm with her hand, and impelled him towards the mountains.
Sebastian’s heart, for the first moment in his life, throbbed with a tender emotion, nearly a-kin to love: he understood nothing in this speech but a desire for his preservation; and he knew himself unknown: It was not the King of Portugal then, but an obscure stranger, whom the daughter of the count Vimiosa was thus solicitous to save. “Ah, charming Gonsalva,” he cried with an air of mental intoxication, “if you are as amiable as you appear, the wishes of”—my people, he was going to add, but checking the indiscreet expression, he finished the sentence with a sigh.
An excess of pleasure brightened the beauty of Gonsalva; she averted her eyes to conceal it, while she repeated an intreaty that he would consider the impropriety of her being discovered in conversation with a young nobleman unknown to her family. Sebastian still lingered: “you must not refuse me another meeting!”—he said; and he said it with the air of a man to whom command is habitual, and refusal a novelty.
“I must not!” repeated Gonsalva, laughing, “do you remember, Don Fabian, that you are speaking to a woman—and that woman the daughter of the count Vimiosa?—our sex are not accustomed to yield, even the slightest favors, at the mere expression of an ardent wish; we must be sued to submissively.”
“Submission is my abhorrence!” exclaimed the young monarch with vivacity, “I feel now, and for the first time in my life, that I can admire, I can prize, I can love, perhaps; but you must not expect me to renounce equality with the object. I must have heart for heart, I must excite as many tender apprehensions as I feel, or—”
“And who are you, that can never speak without an I must:” exclaimed Gonsalva, laughing excessively—“but I have not time to hear your answer, leave me I say—we may perhaps meet again, and then—I hear footsteps—farewell count.”—She turned abruptly into a side path, and Sebastian desirous of remaining unknown, hastened out of the domain.
He was no sooner at a distance from the villa Vimiosa, than he began to muse over the confession of admiration into which he had been hurried, and to dwell with extreme pleasure on the concluding words of Gonsalva, as they certainly intimated a wish to see him again. In less than an hour, a complete set of new ideas had taken possession of his mind: the conversation with Don Antonio, and the wish of his people, blending with the image of Donna Gonsalva, awakened in his bosom an emotion hitherto unknown; but an emotion too sweet and subtle for rejection. The adventure itself had the charm of novelty; as for the first time in his life he beheld a young and lovely woman, who so far from dreaming of his rank, believed herself his superior. Amongst the ladies of the court he had seen beauty, but it was beauty divested of its most touching graces, the play of innocent freedom: he had never met with one who did not appear emulous to attract the King’s notice; and as he possessed too much delicacy to bear the thought of owing any thing to an exalted station, he despised and avoided their homage.