Rogelio went up to Esclavita and took her hand in his—it was burning with fever.
Without exchanging a word, they involuntarily looked around for a seat where they could sit down side by side. There was none in the study, which was furnished with a high stool and half a dozen chairs, and without reflecting they went into the inner room, where Rogelio, putting his arm around the girl’s neck drew her toward the couch and made her sit down beside him. They remained silent for a space of five minutes or so, Rogelio pressing and stroking the girl’s hand, hardened somewhat by labor, the fingers marked by the pricking of the needle, as if to communicate to it the coolness of his palms and draw from it its fever. But he could think of nothing to say except the commonplaces usual on parting, and at last, unwilling to remain silent any longer, he resolved to avail himself of that poor resource.
“Rogelio, putting his arm around the girl’s neck.”
“Suriña, silly girl, don’t be like that,” he began. “See, I have been thinking a great deal; this has troubled me more than you. Nothing would be gained by opposing mamma now. We should afflict her greatly. She might even become ill on account of it, but she would not change her resolution. Have patience. Within three months, or even less, we shall be back here again, and we shall see each other, for you will enjoy a great deal more liberty at Señor Febrero’s than here. You know already that I shall always love you, foolish girl. Don’t desert me for the tender Nuño Rasura. There, silly girl, there, my dove, don’t look like that. If you do, you will make me very unhappy.”
Esclavita only answered by shaking her head with persistent melancholy. After a while she responded in a tolerably firm voice;
“Gay I cannot be; but I am not sad, either. Don’t be troubled on my account. Only my head is—as if there was something wrong going on inside.”
“Suriña! child!”
“It is as I say. I am here, eh? I am listening to you? I answer you? Well, it is as if I were listening to some person—far away, from the other world, talking to me.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the student shuddering. “I would rather see you cry. If you cried you would not have such wild notions, Sura. Cry and give way to your grief; but don’t say those dreadful things.”