Maria Clara, in her modesty, covered her face with her round arm.
“Come! Hurry up and get yourself ready!” said the old lady in an affectionate tone. “While he is talking with your father about you—— Come, do not waste time!”
The girl did not respond, but allowed herself to be picked up like a child and carried to her room.
Captain Tiago and Ibarra were talking earnestly when at last Aunt Isabel appeared, half dragging her niece by the hand. At first the girl looked in every direction but at the persons present. At last, however, her eyes met Ibarra’s.
The conversation of the young lovers was at first confined to the usual trifling remarks, those pleasant little things which, like the boasts of European nations, are enjoyable and interesting to those who are concerned and understand them, but ridiculous to outsiders.
Finally, she, like all sisters of Cain, was moved by jealously and asked: “Have you always thought of me? Have you never forgotten me in your many travels among so many great cities and among such beautiful women?”
And he, a true brother of Cain, dodged the issue, and, being something of a diplomat, answered: “Could I forget you?” And then, gazing into her deep, dark eyes, “Could I break a sacred vow? Do you remember that stormy night when you, seeing me in tears beside my dead mother, came to me and placed your hand—that hand which I have not touched for so long—upon my shoulder, and said: ‘You have lost your mother,—I never had one.’ And then you wept with me. You loved my mother, and she loved you as only a mother can love a daughter. It was raining then, you will remember, and the lightning flashed, but I seemed to hear music and to see a smile on the face of my dead mother.—O, if my parents were only living and could see you now!—That night I took your hand and, joining it with my mother’s, I swore always to love you and make you happy, no matter what fate Heaven might have in store for me. I have never regretted that vow, and now renew it.”
“Since the day that I bade you good-bye and entered the convent,” she answered, smiling, “I have always remembered you, and have never forgotten you in spite of the commands of my confessor, who imposed severe penances on me. I remembered the little games we used to play together and our little quarrels. When we were children you used to find in the river the most beautiful shells for our games of siklot and the finest and most beautifully colored stones for our game of sinkat. You were always very slow and stupid and lost, but you always paid the forfeit, which I gave you with the palm of my hand. But I always tried to strike lightly, for I was sorry for you. You always cheated, even more than I, in the game of chouka and we generally quarrelled over it. Do you remember that time when you really became angry? Then you made me suffer, but when I found that I had no one to quarrel with, we made peace immediately. We were still children when we went with your mother one day to bathe in the stream under the shade of the reeds. Many flowers and plants grew on the bank of the river, and you used to tell me their strange Latin and Spanish names, for you were then studying at the Athenæum. I paid little attention, but amused myself by chasing butterflies and in trying to catch the little fish which slipped away from me so easily among the rocks and weeds of the shore. You suddenly disappeared from sight, but when you returned you brought a wreath of orange flowers and placed it on my head. On our way home, as the sun was hot, I collected some sage leaves from the side of the road for you to put into your hat and thus prevent headache. Then you laughed, we made up, and came the remainder of the way home hand in hand.”
Ibarra smiled as he listened attentively to every detail of the story. Opening his pocket book, he took out a paper in which he had wrapped some withered but fragrant sage leaves. “Your sage leaves,” said he in answer to her questioning glance. “The only thing you have ever given me.”
She, in turn, drew a little, white satin bag from the bosom of her dress. “Stop!” she said, tapping his hand with her own. “You must not touch it; it is a letter of farewell.”