Stein having rejoined Marisalada, said to her—
“Of what avails it, Mariquita, that I have endeavored to tone down your spirit, if you have not learned at least to acquire the little superiority necessary to place yourself above these miseries, which are in themselves so trifling and unimportant?”
“Listen, Don Frederico,” replied Marisalada: “I comprehend that this superiority ought to serve to place me above others, but not below them.”
“God help me, Mariquita! is it thus you change things? Superiority teaches us not to be proud of our qualities, and not to revolt against injustices opposed to us. But,” added he smiling, “these are the faults of your youth, and of the vivacity of your southern blood. You will know all that when you have gray hairs, as I have. Have you remarked, Mariquita, that I have gray hairs?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“See then, I am very young, but sufferings have made my head like that of an aged man. My heart has remained pure, Mariquita, and I offer you the flowers of spring, if you do not believe you will be alarmed at the symbols of winter which circle my forehead.”
“It is true,” replied the Gaviota, who could not restrain the natural ejaculation, “that a lover with gray hairs would not please me.”
“I have thought it would be thus,” said Stein with sadness. “My heart is loyal, and the good Maria, when she assured me that my happiness was still possible, instilled in my heart some hope, but which is as the flowers of the air without roots, and as the breath of the breeze.”
Mariquita, who saw that she had wounded, with her accustomed rudeness, a soul too delicate to insist, and a man so modest as to persuade himself that this sole objection annulled the other advantages, immediately said—
“If a lover with gray hairs pleases me not, a husband with such hair would not frighten me.”