“No; he was too busy.”
“In those months he was too busy to teach you a word of English?”
“Ave Maria! Do not speak angrily, nor lose your temper. Mr. Maxwell was often absent for days. He had no opportunity to teach me English.”
“That, happily,” said I, bursting into a laugh, “was to be reserved for me.”
“Oh, Señor Fielding, you have been so good,” she cried in Spanish; and then she laughed loudly also.
“’Tis what a famous poet of my country,” said I, “has termed a most lame and impotent conclusion. I am pleased to have taught you English.”
“It has killed the time.”
“Mr. Maxwell will be surprised by your knowledge.”
“Señor Fielding, he shall thank you.”
I grinned, walked to the side with the telescope, and feigned to be interested with the distant sail. Narrow, indeed, had been my escape! I drew more than one deep breath as I humbugged with the glass. By her deep blush might I suppose she had foreseen what was coming and arrested it—just in time! I felt obliged to her. But, oh, the meanness of so prolonged an act of secrecy! Oh, the treachery of it! I thought, when I reflected on what had passed between us. What had been her motive for not long ago telling me that she had a sweetheart, and was going to Madrid to be married to him? To make me fall in love with her, and to keep me in love with her, so as to assure herself of my constant courtesy and attention, fearing that I would be neither courteous nor attentive if she told me she was engaged to be married?