Segundo was consumed with a feverish impatience hitherto unknown to him. Since the day of the interview in the lemon tree Nieves had shunned every occasion of being alone with him; and the feverish dream that haunted his sleep, the intolerable anguish which consumed him, was that he had advanced no further than the fugitive yes, which he sometimes even doubted he had heard. He could not endure this slow torture, this ceaseless martyrdom; he would have been less unhappy if instead of encouraging him Nieves had requited his love with open scorn. It was not the brutal desire for positive victories which thus tormented him; all he wished was to convince himself that he was really loved, and that under that steely corset a tender heart throbbed. And so mad was his passion that when he found it impossible to approach Nieves, he was seized by an almost irresistible impulse to cry out, "Nieves, tell me again that you love me!" Always, always obstacles between the two; the child was always at her mother's side. Of what avail was it to be rid of Elvira Molende who, since the memorable night on which she had kept guard in the gallery, had looked at the poet with an expression that was half satirical, half mournful? The departure of the poetess removed an obstacle, indeed, but it did not put an end to his difficulties.
Segundo suffered in his vanity, wounded by the systematic reserve of Nieves, as well as in his love, his ardent longing for the impossible. It was already October; the ex-Minister spoke of taking his departure immediately, and although Segundo counted on establishing himself in Madrid later on through his influence, and meeting Nieves again, an infallible instinct told him that between Nieves and himself there existed no other bond of union than their temporary sojourn in Las Vides, the poetic influences of the season, the accident of living under the same roof, and that if this dream did not take shape before their separation it would be as ephemeral as the vine leaves that were now falling around them, withered and sapless.
Autumn was parting with its glories; the wrinkled and knotted vine stalks, the dry and shrunken vine branches, lay bare to view, and the wind moaned sadly, stripping their leaves from the boughs of the fruit trees. One day Victorina asked Segundo:
"When are we going to the pine grove to hear it sing?"
"Whenever you like, child. This afternoon if your mother wishes it."
The child conveyed the proposition to Nieves. For some time past Victorina had been more than usually demonstrative toward her mother, leaning her head upon Nieves' breast, hiding her cheek in her neck, passing her hands over her hair and her shoulders while she would repeat softly, in a voice that seemed to ask for a caress:
"Mamma! mamma!"
But the eyes of the miniature woman, half-veiled by their long lashes, were fixed with loving, longing glance, not on her mother, but on the poet, whose words the child drank in eagerly, turning very red if he chanced to make some jesting remark to her or gave any other indication of being aware of her presence.
Nieves objected a little at first, not wishing to appear credulous or superstitious.
"But what has put such an idea into your head?"