"Your wounds!... I want to see your wounds!"
Saldaña was dumfounded at the command of this great lady accustomed to carrying out her most whimsical ideas. Blushing like a soldier, who had lived all his life among men, he finally drew up the left sleeve of his uniform, revealing a brown, hairy forearm, with large tendons, and deeply furrowed by the scar of a bullet wound received back in Spain.
The Princess admired his athletic arm, with its dark skin, cut by the jagged white of the new tissue.
"The other—the others! I want to see the rest of them!" she commanded, gazing at him fiercely, as though she were ready to bite, while her lips, moist and shining, curved sharply downward.
She had seized his arm with a hand that trembled, while with the other she tried to undo the gold cords on the officer's breast.
Saldaña drew back, stammering. "Oh! Princess!" What she desired was impossible. It was impossible to show the other wounds to a lady....
He felt on the one visible scar the contact of two lips. Nadina, bowing her proud head, was kissing his arm.
"Hero!... Oh! my hero!"
Immediately afterward she drew herself up again, cold and distant, with no other sign of emotion than a slight quivering of her nostrils. No longer was she tormented by the desire to see immediately those frightful scars of which she had heard from some of the comrades of the brave adventurer. She was sure of being able to see them to her heart's content whenever she pleased.
In a few days the rumor began to circulate that the Princess Lubimoff was to be married to the Spaniard. She herself had started the news going, without bothering to ascertain beforehand the inclination of her future husband.