Marie, to whom I had said nothing about my having set the place to rights, entered the summer-house the first. “See, Leopold,” said she, “my nest is in the same condition in which I left it yesterday; here are your flowers thrown about in disorder and trampled to pieces, and there is that odious bouquet which does not appear at all faded since yesterday; indeed, it looks as if it had been freshly gathered.”
I was speechless with rage and surprise. There was my morning’s work utterly ruined, and the wild flowers, at whose freshness Marie was so much astonished, had insolently usurped the place of the roses that I had strewn all over the place.
“Calm yourself,” said Marie, who noticed my agitation; “this insolent intruder will come here no more; let us put all thoughts of him on one side, as I do this nasty bunch of flowers.”
I did not care to undeceive her, and to tell her that he had returned, yet I was pleased to see the air of innocent indignation with which she crushed the flowers under her foot, but hoping that the day would again come when I should meet my mysterious rival face to face, I made her sit down between her nurse and myself.
Scarcely had we done so than Marie put her finger on my lips; a sound, deadened by the breeze and the rippling of the stream, had struck upon her ear. I listened; it was the notes of a guitar, the same melody that had filled me with fury on the preceding evening. I made a movement to start from my seat, but a gesture of Marie’s detained me.
“Leopold,” whispered she, “restrain yourself, he is going to sing, and we shall learn who he is.”
As she spoke, a few more notes were struck on the guitar, and then from the depths of the wood came the plaintive melody of a Spanish song, every word of which has remained deeply engraved on my memory.
Why dost thou fear me and fly me?
Say, has my music no charms?
Do you not know that I love you?