I agreed to wait for her; then, placing the cluster she had gathered on the grass, she left me. Before long she returned with a stalk, round, polished, slender, like a pipe-stem, and crowned with its cluster of three splendid crimson flowers.
When I had sufficiently thanked her and admired it, I said, “What boon are you going to ask from the Virgin, Monica, when you offer her these flowers—safety for your lover in the wars?”
“No, señor; I have no offering to make, and no boon to ask. They are for my aunt; I offered to gather them for her, because—I wished to meet you here.”
“To meet me, Monica—what for?”
“To ask for a story, señor,” she replied, colouring and with a shy glance at my face.
“Ah, we have had stories enough,” I said. “Remember poor Anita running away this morning to look for a playmate in the wet mist.”
“She is a child; I am a woman.”
“Then, Monica, you must have a lover who will be jealous if you listen to stories from a stranger's lips in this lonely spot.”
“No person will ever know that I met you here,” she returned—so bashful, yet so persistent.
“I have forgotten all my stories,” I said.