She walked a few steps up the bank, and then suddenly ran back to snuggle again in her lover's arms.
"Another, my prince ... the last."
Day was breaking, announced not by the song of the lark, as in the garden of Shakespere's lovers at Verona, but by the sound of carts, creaking over country roads in the distance, and by a languid, sleepy melody of an orchard boy.
"Good-bye, Rafael.... Now I must really go. They'll discover us."
Wrapping her coat about her she hurried away, waving a final farewell to him with her handkerchief.
Rafael rowed upstream toward the city. That part of the trip—he reflected—alone, tired, and struggling against the current, was the one bad part of the wonderful night. When he moored his boat near the bridge it was already broad day. The windows of the river houses were opening. Over the bridge carts laden with produce for the market were rumbling, and orchard women were going by with huge baskets on their heads. All these people looked down with interest on their deputy. He must have spent the night fishing. And this news passed from one to the other, though not a trace of fishing tackle was visible in the boat. How they envied rich folks, who could sleep all day and spend their time just as they pleased!
Rafael jumped ashore. All that curiosity he was attracting annoyed him. His mother would know everything by the time he got home!
As he climbed slowly and wearily, his arms numb from rowing, to the bridge, he heard his name called.
Don Andrés was standing there, gazing at him out of those yellow eyes of his, scowling through his wrinkles with an expression of stern authority.
"You've given me a fine night, Rafael. I know where you've been. I saw you row off last night with that woman; and plenty of my friends were on hand to follow you and find out just where you went. You've been on the island all night; that woman was singing away like a lunatic.... God of Gods, boy! Aren't there any houses in the world? Do you have to play the band when you're having an affair, so that everybody in the Kingdom can come and look?"