“Ay, trifling! Have you not won her affections?”
“I won them fairly.”
“Pshaw, sir! This is a child, not a woman. Won them fairly! What can she know of love?”
“Papa! I do know love. I have felt it for many days. Do not be angry with Enrique, for I love him; oh, papa! in my heart I love him!”
He turned to her with a look of astonishment.
“Hear this!” he exclaimed. “Oh, heavens! my child, my child!”
His voice stung me, for it was full of sorrow.
“Listen, sir!” I cried, placing myself directly before him. “I have won the affections of your daughter. I have given mine in return. I am her equal in rank, as she is mine. What crime, then, have I committed? Wherein have I wronged you?”
He looked at me for some moments without making any reply.
“You would marry her, then?” he said, at length, with an evident change in his manner.