"How solemn you English are, when—when you are solemn!" she cried, smiling again. "Do I think you are a friend? Yes, I do, in all truth. I know it. We shall not quarrel again. I believe you are so much my friend that, if I would let you, you would ruin yourself for me. That is how you would read friendship and how I read you. But I will not let my family do that."
"And how may I read you?" I said, quickly.
"How do you read me?" she retorted, with unwonted eagerness.
"How would you have me read you?"
"How would I have you read me?" She paused, glanced away, and then, looking me straight in the eyes, answered seriously and meaningly. "As what I am, not as what I might have been. You of all the world must not make the mistake of confusing the two."
"I do not mistake. What you might have been is what you shall be, Sarita," I said, earnestly—so earnestly that the expression in her eyes changed slightly, and she turned them away and started, and I thought she trembled. She knew my meaning; and after a moment or two, in which she had forced under the feelings that seemed to have surprised herself, she said calmly and almost formally—
"I will tell you what I think you do not know. I am in no real danger, for I am all but pledged to marry—Sebastian Quesada!" Her firmness scarcely lasted to the end of the sentence, and she uttered the last words as if looking for some expostulation from me; but I made none. Instead, I laughed and shook my head. I would not take it seriously.
"There is much virtue in that 'all but.'" She seemed surprised and in a sense disappointed at my reception of the news.
"It is true. I have three days left to give my answer. He gave me a week."
"He might as well have given you an hour—or a year. It's all the same. It will never be more than 'all but.' There are those who will never allow it."