He was anxious to appear to advantage in her eyes. Why? She was nothing to him, yet, for some time, she had been the object of all his solicitude. In the course of conversation, she admitted that she had many admirers, which, for a girl so attractive, was likely enough. But why permit the development of a passion in her that could lead to nothing good? Why respond to her growing tenderness? Why—ay, there was the rub, the lure, and the peril.
His affections, such as a lad not yet twenty may possess, were promised elsewhere. Was Flora true, and remembering him still? This was rub number two.
Quentin Kennedy, I tremble for thee; and, if the truth must be told, much more for the future peace and reputation of Donna Isidora de Saldos, for neither a wholesome terror of Baltasar's wrath or the Padre Trevino's knife may avail her much.
"What if she loves me—loves me as dear Flora did?" thought Quentin; and when this pleasing but alarming idea occurred to him, he really dreaded that her heart might be too far involved in those tender passages, coquetries, and other little matters incident to their hourly intercourse: white hands taken almost inadvertently or as a matter of course; a soft cheek, at times so near his own; and darkly-lashed eyes that looked softly into his, were rather alluring, certainly.
In Spain, women do not shake hands with men; their dainty fingers (dingy frequently) are kissed, or not touched at all; hence we may suppose that Quentin and Isidora, when they began to sit hand-in-hand looking out on the pouring rain as twilight deepened, had got a long way on in lovemaking—in engineering parlance, that he had pushed the trenches to the base of the glacis.
Some one remarks somewhere, that the fogs and sleet of England mar many a ripening love; but that under the clear skies, in the balmy air, in the long sultry days, the voluptuous evenings, and still more in the gorgeous moonlights of Spain, the gentle passion is of more rapid growth, and becomes more impulsive, heartfelt, and keen.
In the present instance, however, chance and a storm—such as that which waylaid Dido and the Trojan hero—had been the inspirers of Donna Isidora, who, sooth to say, found Quentin somewhat slow to follow her example.
"Mi hermano—my brother—you will be and must be," she would whisper at times, in a manner that, to say the least of it, was very bewitching.
"I shall try, Donna Isidora."
"Try, say you? Wherefore only try?" she asked, with her eyes full of fire and inquiry. "Is it a task so difficult to feel esteem or love for me? Go! I shall hate you!" Then she would thrust aside his hand, and pouting, half turn away her flushing face, only that the little hand might be taken again, an explanation made, and reconciliation effected.