Edgar, towering above her, always smiling—the child playing with his beard as she stood on the seat breast-high with himself—still holding that small burning hand in his, Leam not resisting, then said in Spanish, "My soul! have pity on me."
The old familiar words thrilled the girl like a voice from the dead. Had anything been wanting to rivet the chains in which love had bound her, it was these words, "My soul," spoken by her lover in her mother's tongue. She answered more freely, almost eagerly, in the same language, "Would you be sorry?" and Edgar, whose Castilian was by no means unlimited, replied in English "Yes" at a venture, and sat down on the seat by her.
"Fina, go and ask Jones to tell you pretty stories about the bay," he then said to the child.
"And may I ride him?" cried Fina, sure to take the ell when given the inch.
"Ask Jones," he answered good-naturedly "I dare say he will put you up."
Whereupon Fina ran off to the groom, whom she teased for the next half hour to give her a ride on the bay.
But Jones was obdurate. The major's horse was not only three sticks and a barrel, like some on 'em, he said, and too full of his beans for a little miss like her to mount. The controversy, however, kept the child engaged if it made her angry; and thus Edgar was left free to break down more of that trembling defence-work within which Leam was doing her best to entrench herself.
"Do you know, Leam, you have not looked at me once since I came?" he said, after they had been sitting for some time, he talking on indifferent subjects to give her time to recover herself, and she replying in monosyllables, or perhaps not replying at all.
She was silent, but her eyes drooped a little lower.
"Will you not look at me, darling?" he asked in that mellifluous voice of his which no woman had yet been found strong enough to withstand.