At the first moment—no, not the first—I mean, the second moment of our meeting at your farm, I was mortified because you tried to look at me before I could look at you. Why did you do it? It was unkind. I had been thinking of you for four years; but you, if you thought of me at all, couldn't have thought of me more than four days. Yet, although you were in such a hurry to beat off my eyes, I saw in an instant that you were exactly as I had imagined you. Oporto and the Douro were not in the least like the engravings they showed me in England: but you were my dream come true. And all the time I sat on your right hand at dinner, I felt as if I had known you for years and years. You are not as clever as I expected; but you are gentle, and I am not one bit afraid of you.
We nearly quarreled about monks and about the azulejos, did we not? Still, it was only on the surface. You think I make too little of religion; I think you make too much: but we have agreed quite amicably to differ. Deep down in our hearts we are at one.
Since the day my father went to Lisbon I have been happy, for the first time in my life. You left me to make all the approaches; but I was very, very happy until Fisher mentioned Margarida. Last night I ached and burned with shame, because I had let fall the veil from my heart. But this morning I am glad and thankful.
You are not like other men. And I think I am not wholly like other women. As soon as you have read this paper we are going to tear it into thousands of pieces. So I will be bold. Mine is not the only secret that is out. I know you love me, my friend, my only friend in the world.
Antonio paused in his reading. For a moment he felt an immense relief at learning that he was not to blame. But he reminded himself that his blamelessness did not help Isabel one whit. Here was a mystical passion, an inscrutable supernatural love. No one could explain its beginning, no one could foretell its end. Only by a great effort did he resume the reading of the paper. It continued:
So much for the past. Now for the present and the future. What are we to do? Don't be hurt, dearest friend, if I write bluntly about practical matters.
There is a difference in our stations. I suspect that your blood is really nobler than mine and that your escutcheon is less tarnished; but, from the point of view of my friends, this will be a misalliance. Don't be angry. I mention it only to bid you disregard it. I have pondered it well and it weighs less than a sparrow's feather. I am nothing to the people in England; and they shall be nothing to me. Tell me, though; was it this that held you back from wooing me? I believe it was; and that is why the advances came from my side. But, after this, remember! You must court me, woo me. If I command it, you must crick your neck for me, as if I were a Senhorita.
And now about my father. You may fear that it will be a blow to him. Certainly it will amaze him and disconcert him. But if you were not in the case, my friend, I should have to amaze him and disconcert him some other way. So long as I and Mrs. Baxter and Jackson are with him, he doesn't realise the flight of time. He thinks of me as a little girl, and of himself as a man of forty who must needs be up and doing. He has fought his hard fight and he deserves his rest. More. He needs it. The Navares doctor says he will go out like a candle in a gale if he does not surrender. Whatever you may think, I love my father; and, even for your sake, I would not leave his side if it were not wholly for his good. God knows I am honest in this and in every word I have written. ISABEL.
Mechanically refolding the sheet, Antonio rose to his feet and drew a deep breath. In a few minutes Isabel would return. She would steal as shyly as a young deer through the branches. She would expect him to spring towards her, to clasp her in his arms, to murmur proud words of possession, to lavish in her ears his long-hoarded treasure of love-words, to press kisses on her hands, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. Like a terrifying tocsin her words clanged in his brain: "My friend, my only friend in the world, you love me!"
He turned his gaze towards the Atlantic. But the day was growing sultry. Thunder was in the air and mists hid the great waters. He dared not look into the woods lest he should espy the slender figure tripping towards him. And somehow he could not lift up his eyes and his heart to heaven. In this cruel issue his inborn instincts of a courtly gentleman wore down his acquired habits of piety, until it savored of a coarseness or of a lapse from honor to breathe a word of this rare ladye's secret, even into the pitiful ears of God's saints and angels. Thus earth and sea and sky alike failed him. He closed his eyes.