"Why?"
"For two reasons: the first is, because much as I enjoy hearing you when we are alone, I don't like it when you sing before people; the second is, because they will take you away from me."
"I don't see why you should dislike it because I sing before people. I am the one not to like it—and I don't at all. As to the separation, that's nonsense, because we are together much more than we ought to be."
"It would be a long and difficult task for me to explain why I don't like you to sing in public. As to the separation which you call nonsense, it's the solemn truth. In spite of our being together several hours a day it seems to me very little. I could wish that we were together all the time. For a man who is going to be married inside of a month and a half, I don't think that such a wish is very extraordinary."
And lowering his voice, he added in a passionate tone:—
"I am never satisfied, and never shall be satisfied, however much I am with thee, my own life. In all the years since I have adored thee, never for a single instant have I felt the shadow of satiety. When I am near thee, I think that I could not be more content, even in heaven; when I am away, I think how much happier I should be if I were with thee. This is a guaranty that we should never get tired of each other's society; isn't it so? For my part, I give thee my word that if we reach old age, I shall enjoy more by thy side than sitting in the sunshine! What a happy life is waiting for us, and how long it is that I have dreamed about it! Do you remember how one day in the big garden, when you were eight years old, and I was ten, my dear mamma made us take each other's hands, saying to us in a serious tone: 'Would you like to be husband and wife? Then kiss each other, and look out that you don't quarrel any more.' From that time forth I have never dreamed of the possibility of marrying any other woman than you."
Maria made no reply to this fervid declaration. She kept looking at the proprietor of the canning factory, with a strange expression, as though her thoughts were far away.
"Do you know one thing?"
"What?"
"That the chests have come with thy clothes, but I have not opened them yet. Both of them have on the lid thy cipher with the coronet of marchioness above. You may laugh at me, but I shall tell thee, all the same, that it made my heart leap to see the coronet. I imagined that we were already married, and that I hadn't to wait these everlasting forty-five days. I don't know what I wouldn't give if to-day were the last day of December. Tell me, don't you feel any inclination to call yourself the Marquesa de Peñalta? to be mine, mine for ever?"