I determined to try again.
Just as the sun’s rays were turning rose-coloured upon the snow-crowned summit of Orizava, I was once more wending my way towards the Calle del Obispo.
A third disappointment; but this time of a kind entirely different from the other two.
I had hit the hour. The donçella—of whom for three days I had been thinking—three nights dreaming—was in the window where I had first seen her.
One glance and I was completely disenchanted!
Not that she could be called plain, or otherwise than pretty. She was more than passably so, but still only pretty.
Where was the resplendent beauty that had so strangely, suddenly, impressed me?
She might have deemed me ill-mannered, as I stood scanning her features to discover it; for I was no longer in awe—such as I expected her presence would have produced. I could now look upon her, without fear of that possibly perilous future I had been picturing to myself.
After all, the thing was easy of explanation. For six weeks we had been among the hills—in cantonment—so far from Jalapa, that it was only upon rare occasions we had an opportunity of refreshing our eyes with a sight of the fair Jalapenas. We had been accustomed to see only the peasant girls of Banderilla and San Miguel Soldado, with here and there along the route the coarse unkempt squaws of Azteca. Compared with these, she of the Calle del Obispo was indeed an angel. It was the contrast that had misled me?
Well, it would be a lesson of caution not to be too quick at falling in love. I had often listened to the allegement, that circumstances have much to do in producing the tender passion. This seemed to confirm it.