"Oh, you would soon get tired of it," returned Cecilia, smiling.
"Will you try me?"
The girl was silent.
"You are not, Cecilia, one of those women of whom one easily tires. You have treasures in your heart and mind that would always keep the man who loves you at your feet. You have had my heart for more than two years, and instead of wearying I feel myself more and more attached to you. I adore you more and more desperately, to the point of being the laughing-stock of the place."
"That is nonsense," she replied, albeit touched by the fire and feeling that Flores had given to his words. "It is not the same thing seeing a woman a little while now and again, and speaking to her of this and that, as having her continually with you."
"What should I like better, Cecilia, than to have you always with me!" returned the engineer in a low, trembling voice, playing with the fan, with his eyes on the ground. "To consecrate my life to your service, and to adore you on my knees. I know that you would make any man happy, but no one as much as I, for I know the great qualities of your soul, and I divine secret feelings in your heart quite unknown to others. It is terrible that you will not give me the remotest hope that some day, distant as it may be, my love will conquer you, and you will accept me as a slave."
"I accept you as a friend, as a great friend," said the girl gravely.
"Friend, bah! This friendship, Cecilia, is a stone wall between you and me. I understand that I do not deserve to win your love—that there are a hundred young men in the town who could ask it with a better right; but what is so strange, and what encourages and discourages me at the same time, is that until now you have chosen nobody. Your heart remains empty and indifferent—that is to say, unless you have some hidden love."
Cecilia shivered slightly and raised her eyes a little to the place where the voice of Gonzalo was audible. Then she replied with more severity than usual:
"Cease studying my heart, Flores. In the first place, because it is most probably as commonplace as that of the majority of women, and in the second place, because, if there were something hidden in it, it would not be easy for you to discover it."