Doña Mercedes rose without replying, and left the room. The lovely enthusiast dropped her head on her hand, and remained silent, taking no notice of me, a cloud of sorrow on her countenance.
“Señorita,” I said, “it is not necessary for you to remain longer here. Only tell me before going that you forgive me, for it makes me very unhappy to think that I have offended you.”
She turned to me with a very bright smile and gave me her hand.
“Ah, it is for you to forgive me for hastily taking offence at a light word,” she said. “I must not allow anything you say in future to spoil my gratitude. Do you know I think you are one of those who like to laugh at most things, señor—no, let me call you Richard, and you shall call me Dolores, for we must remain friends always. Let us make a compact, then it will be impossible for us to quarrel. You shall be free to doubt, question, laugh at everything, except one thing only—my faith in Santa Coloma.”
“Yes, I will gladly make that agreement,” I replied. “It will be a new kind of paradise, and of the fruit of every tree I may eat except of this tree only.”
She laughed gaily.
“I will now leave you,” she said. “You are suffering pain, and are very tired. Perhaps you will be able to sleep.” While speaking she brought a second cushion for my head, then left me, and before long I fell into a refreshing doze.
I spent three days of enforced idleness at the Casa Blanca, as the house was called, before Santa Coloma returned, and after the rough experience I had undergone, during which I had subsisted on a flesh diet untempered by bread or vegetables, they were indeed like days spent in paradise to me. Then the General came back. I was sitting alone in the garden when he arrived, and, coming out to me, he greeted me warmly.
“I greatly feared from my previous experience of your impatience under restraint that you might have left us,” he said kindly.
“I could not do that very well yet, without a horse to ride on,” I returned.