“Your sage leaves,” he replied to her questioning look.
In her turn, she drew out a little white satin purse.
“Hands off!” as he reached out for it, “there’s a letter in it!”
“My letter of good-by?”
“Have you written me any others, señor mio?”
“What is in it?”
“Lots of fibs, excuses of a bad debtor,” she laughed. “If you’re good I will read it to you, suppressing the gallantries, though, so you won’t suffer too much.” And lifting the paper to hide her face, she began:
“‘My——’ I’ll not read what follows, because it’s a fib”; and she ran her eyes over several lines. “In spite of my prayers, I must go. ‘You are no longer a boy,’ my father said, ‘you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if you would be useful to her some day. What, almost a man and I see you in tears?’ Upon that I confessed my love for you. He was silent, then placing his hand on my shoulder he said in a voice full of emotion: ‘Do you think you alone know how to love; that it costs your father nothing to let you go away from him? It is not long since we lost your mother, and I am growing old, yet I accept my solitude and run the risk of never seeing you again. For you the future opens, for me it shuts; the fire of youth is yours, frost touches me, and it is you who weep, you who do not know how to sacrifice the present to a to-morrow good for you and for your country.”
Ibarra’s agitation stopped the reading; he had become very pale and was walking back and forth.
“What is it? You are ill!” cried Maria, going toward him.