"They are coming! For Heaven's sake! I shall die of terror! Enough of jesting, García, I entreat you——"
"You know perfectly well that I am not jesting. Have you forgotten the night of the fireworks? If you did not love me you would have released yourself from my arm on that night, or you would have cried out. You look at me sometimes—you return my glances. You cannot deny it!"
Segundo was close to Nieves, speaking with fiery impetuosity, but without touching her, although the fragrant, rustling branches of their shelter closed around them, inviting them to closer proximity. But Segundo remembered the cold hard whalebones, and Nieves drew back, trembling. Yes, trembling with fear. She might cry out, indeed, but if Segundo persisted in remaining how annoying it would be! What a mortification! What gossip it would give rise to! After all the poet was right—the night of the fireworks she had been culpably weak and she was paying for it now. And what would Segundo do if she gave him the yes he asked for? He repeated his proud and vehement assertion:
"You love me, Nieves. You love me. Tell me that you love me, only once, and I will go."
Not far off could be heard the contralto voice of Teresa Molende calling to her companions:
"Nieves—where is she? Victorina, Carmen, come in, the dew is falling!"
And another shrill voice, that of Elvira, woke the echoes:
"Segundo! Segundo! We are going in!"
In fact that almost imperceptible mizzle, which refreshes the sultry nights of Galicia, was falling; the lustrous leaves of the lemon tree in which Nieves sat, shrinking back from Segundo, were wet with the night dew. The poet leaned toward her and his hands touched her hands chilled with cold and terror. He crushed them between both his own.
"Tell me that you love me, or——"