"But how comes it?" she said, with a half-smiling air, in order to change the conversation, which was becoming a little too serious. "Pardon my giddy impertinence! How comes it, I say, that you, of whom I sometimes caught a glimpse at Paris, during my short sojourn there, and who then enjoyed, if I was not mistaken, a brilliant position, should meet me here so far from your country?"
"Alas! madam, my history is that of many young men, and may be summed up in two words—weakness and ignorance."
"That is but too true; that is the history of nearly all the world, in Europe as well as in America."
At this moment a great noise reached them from the camp. Doña Rosario and the Count were placed so as not to be able to see what was passing in the plain.
"What is that noise?" she asked.
"Probably the tumult of the festival which reaches us: should you like to be present at this ceremony?"
"To what purpose? Those cries and that tumult terrify me."
"And yet, I thought it was you who asked Don Tadeo to see this."
"A silly girl's caprice," she said, "which passed away as soon as conceived."
"But was it not Don Tadeo's intention to——"