Intelligence of a high class is often accompanied by a weakness detrimental to its possessors: they cannot bring themselves to believe, that those who fawn upon them and flatter their propensities are sufficiently acute to deceive them. And so it happened in this case. How could he fail to believe a girl, still almost a child, whose manner seemed so guileless, whose looks were fraught with love, and who avowed her affection so frankly?
What could she gain by deceiving him, now Don Fernando was alive? What object could she have in coming thus to put herself into his hands, without the possibility of escaping from him?
All this appeared absurd: and was so, in fact, up to a certain point.
It only proved that Don Torribio, preeminently a statesman, endowed with admirable talent, and whose sole aim through life had been the accomplishment of his dreams of ambition, was so entirely absorbed in farfetched political calculations, that he had no time to study that amalgam of archness, grace, and perfidy we call woman, and knew nothing about her nature.
A woman South American woman especially—never forgives an injury to her lover; he is the holy ark which none may touch.
Moreover, we must say, Doña Hermosa was the first, the only love of Don Torribio. His love was to him a creed, a faith; and all doubt vanished from before his eyes at the proof she had just given of her affection.
"And now," she said to him, "can I remain in the camp till my father comes, without risking insult?"
"You have but to command!" he replied: "All here are your slaves."
"The woman, under whose protection I was able to reach you will go back to the hacienda of Las Norias."
Don Torribio strode to the curtain of the toldo, and clapped his hands twice.