"Ricardo! what are you doing here?"
"I saw that you left the dining-room, and I followed you."
"What for?"
"To hear for a second time from your lips the infamous words you said to me in the drawing-room. Do you think, perhaps, it isn't worth while to repeat them? Do you think, perhaps, that I can give up a whole past of love, a whole future of happiness, all the sweet dreams of my life, without calling you infamous, a hundred times infamous, a thousand times infamous, now right here, while we are together alone, afterwards in open society, and then before the whole world? Come, come back, you miserable girl—come back, and let me call you so before everybody!"
And Ricardo, pale and trembling like a gambler who has staked his last remaining money on a card, firmly grasped his sweetheart by the wrist and tried to drag her back to the parlor.
Maria hung her head and said not a word. Without offering any resistance she allowed him to pull her down the four or five steps of the staircase. But on reaching the passage-way, Ricardo felt on his cheek a warm kiss, which caused him to loose his captive and fall back with horror; instantly Maria's arms were wound around his neck, and on his lips he felt the imprint of other lips.
"Ricardo mio, for heaven's sake, don't put me to shame!"
These words, whispered in his ear with a passionate accent, were accompanied by a cloud of caresses. The young man pressed her close to his heart without answering a word; his emotion choked his utterance. When he became a little calmer, he asked her with trembling voice,—
"Do you love me?"
"With all my soul!"