"Listen to me; you love Doña Rosario, and I am certain that on her part she feels for you a true and profound affection; the services we have rendered her father, authorise us to have an explanation with him, which I am convinced he expects, and the result of which must render you happy for ever. This explanation, which I would not risk without speaking to you first, I will have this morning, and speak frankly to Don Tadeo."
A melancholy smile flitted across the young man's lips, and he let his head sink on his breast without replying.
"What is the matter with you?" Valentine cried anxiously; "Why is it that this determination, which is to fulfil all your wishes, plunges you into such grief? Explain yourself, Louis!"
"What good will it do to explain myself? Why should we speak today to Don Tadeo? What hurry is there?" the young man remarked evasively.
Valentine shook his head, looking at him with astonishment; he could not comprehend his friend's conduct at all; he, however, determined to drive him into his last entrenchments.
"Well, this is the reason why: I wish to assure your happiness as soon as possible," he said. "The life I have been leading for a month past in this hacienda is oppressive to me. Since my arrival in America my character has changed: the sight of great forests, lofty mountains, in short, of all the sublime magnificence which God has spread with a bountiful hand in the desert, has developed the instincts of a traveller, the germ of which I carried at the bottom of my heart; the constantly recurring changes of the adventurous life which I have led for some time, cause me to experience pleasures without bounds: in a word, I have become a passionate wood ranger, and I pant for the moment when I shall be permitted to resume my aimless rambles in the desert."
A silence of some minutes ensued.
"Yes," the count murmured at length, "that life is indeed full of charms——"
"That is why I am so eager to launch again into these scenes of excitement."
"What prevents our resuming them?"