"I feel sad, Ricardo.... I feel sad, as though some misfortune were hurrying on me."
"It's your nerves, which are overtaxed, dear.... Fasts greatly weaken you. You ought to stop them for a while, as well as so many hours of prayer.... You are weakening yourself very much...."
"On the contrary, I have never felt so well as I have lately. It is not my nerves, but a genuine sadness.... It is my soul that suffers, and not my body."
"But have you any reason for being melancholy?"
"I have a presentiment."
"But who cares for presentiments?"
Maria kept silent, and Ricardo also. It was the twilight hour; both gazed steadily out of the window, upon the great plaza of Nieva, surrounded by its arcades, where the boys who had been let out of school were amusing themselves, running and shouting. The sun was already down, leaving above the tiled roof of the town-hall[60] a wide stretch of sky slightly tinted with rose, which took bluish shades toward the zenith, and yellow toward the horizon. The people of the town were hurrying through the streets, attending to the last duties of the day, and enjoying the sweet gloaming. Such an evening was rare. The balconies of the Café de la Estrella were occupied by a few customers, who were casting their restless eyes around the plaza. On the balcony of the opposite house a little boy, with blue eyes and light, curly hair, was having a good time with a wooden pipe, blowing soap-bubbles. Several ragamuffins below, with no little chatter, caught them as they floated down, bursting them with their hats and handkerchiefs.
After a while, Maria turned to her betrothed, and fixing upon him an intense, anxious look, said, with trembling voice,—
"Ricardo, do you love me much?"
"Why do you ask me that question?... Don't you know that I do?"