“She who does not do what we all do, I would flee from, if I were a man, as one flees from an infuriated bull. In a word—my hand on my heart—you act wrong. But you are yet but a child,” she added, with her habitual goodness, “there is much for you yet to learn. Time is a great teacher.”
Marisalada arose and departed.
“Yes,” thought she, covering her head with her handkerchief, “he loves me, I have known it for a long time—but—I love him as old Maria loves brother Gabriel, as the aged love. He would receive a shower under my window without fearing to take cold. Now—if he marries me, he will render my life happy I am sure; he will let me do as I like: he will give me music whenever I ask him, and purchase for me every thing I may desire. If I were his wife, I would have a neckerchief of crape, like Quela, the daughter of old Juan Lopez; and a mantle, blonde of Almagro, like that of the Alcaldesa.
“They would both die with rage; but it seems to me that Don Frederico, agitated as he is when he listens to my singing, thinks as much of marrying me as Don Modesto thinks of taking for his wife his dear Rosa—chief of all the devils.”
During the whole of this beautiful mental dialogue, Marisalada had not one thought, not one recollection of her father, whose well-being and whose solace had been the chief motives adduced by Maria.
CHAPTER XI.
CONVINCED that she could neither be aided nor supported by the influential man who would not join her in these matrimonial projects, Maria determined to act by herself, with the certainty of overcoming the objections of the Gaviota, and those which Stein would oppose. Nothing stopped her, neither the boldness of Marisalada, nor the stolidity of Stein, because love is persevering as a sister of charity, and intrepid as a hero; and love was the grand spring of all this good old woman did. It was thus she said to Stein, and to the point:
“Do you know, Don Frederico, several days ago Marisalada was here, and she explained to us very clearly, and with a grace altogether natural, that she came here only on your account?”
“How do you find this frankness? I say that, if it be true, it was an ingratitude that my pretty nightingale was not capable of; she was no doubt jesting.”
“Don Frederico, the old are more experienced than the young, and the first impulses are the best. Does it cause you much grief to learn that you are beloved?”