During the days that followed, he began to show more attention and love to his cousin than ever, spending long hours in her company. This sudden ardor on her lover's part was sufficient to turn Julita's head completely. The asperity of her restless and ardent temperament had already for some time been changing into mildness. Don Alfonso, owing to la brigadiera's blameworthy carelessness, had got into the habit of taking certain liberties with her, innocent enough in themselves, but extremely dangerous. When he had made her his slave, he asked her one day:—
"Julita, do you want to marry me?"
"What a question!" exclaimed the girl, growing crimson as a poppy.
"Well, then, let us have it understood that you accept me as your husband."
"Who told you so, jackanapes."[58]
"You have told me with those sharp eyes of yours ever since I knew you! You can't deny it, Julia!"
"Tonto! tonto! you insufferable fellow!" exclaimed the girl, trying to be angry.
"Let us not speak any more of that. That matter is settled. In the first place, we have both agreed, La Señorita Doña Julia Rivera on the one hand, and Don Alfonso Saavedra on the other, that we wish to enter into wedlock. Now then, how to carry our project into effect? I have already reached the twenty-fifth year of my age—if you did not know it before, you know it now." (Julia laughed.) "Consequently the law authorizes me to marry whenever I wish, without my mother's consent. Still this permission is indispensable for me, in the first place, on account of the frantic affection which she professes for me; on account of the duty that I owe her of not going against her wishes or causing her a grief which the poor woman does not deserve; and in the second place, through a selfish consideration, which is likewise of much weight. I have been a wretch, Julita; a prodigal who has in a few years run through the fortune that I inherited from my father. The result of that is that I now find myself at my mother's mercy, and she, be it said in the interest of truth, has not hitherto been niggardly toward me. But as you can easily imagine, I don't know what might happen if I married against her wishes. Now then, I confess with shame, I am not used to working, nor even if I wanted to work should I know what to set my hand to. So then, we must tell my mamma, if we are to get married. To-morrow I will write her, and if, as I have no reason to doubt, she has no objection to our marriage, we can immediately set the time for it."
What a sleepless night Julita spent! and yet how happy a night it was!
Don Alfonso took it for granted that their marriage was settled, and even spoke of it as though it had already taken place. The talks which they had during the four days which elapsed between the letter and its answer were almost all concerned with the preparations to be made for the wedding,—what they would do after they were joined, etc. Julia waited impatiently for the mamma's answer from Seville. As for la brigadiera, as Don Alfonso was her right eye, she had never taken her into consideration at all. By his advice she had not said a word to her about it as yet.