“I did not say so,” she replied quickly, raising her dark lashes for an instant. “Perhaps I may even love you with as fierce a passion as you yourself have betrayed. Yet, though that may be so, we can never marry—never!”
“May I not know the reason?” I asked.
“No,” she answered, with her eyes fixed seaward. “Soon I shall die—then perhaps you will ascertain the truth. Until then, let us be friends, not lovers.”
I was sorely puzzled, for the mystery was so tantalising. Times without number I sought by artfully concealed questions to penetrate it, but she frustrated every effort, and when we parted outside the Casino at noon, my bewitching señorita grasped my hand in farewell, saying—
“We are true friends. Let us trust each other.”
“We do,” I answered, bending with reverence over the hand I held. “Our friendship will, I hope, last always—always.”
Her heart seemed too full for further words, for her luminous eyes were filled with tears as she disengaged her hand and turned slowly away with uneven steps.
Again and again we met, but on each occasion I spoke of love, she requested me kindly but firmly to refrain from discussing the subject.
“It is enough,” she said, one morning, while we were strolling in the Calle Santa Catalina—“enough that, in idling away a few hours each morning, we do not bore each other. Let us live for the present, enjoying to the full the few pleasant rambles that remain to us. Then, when we have parted, only pleasant memories will remain.”
Sometimes I met her driving in the afternoon, or walking along the Concha in the evening with the Countess. Then she would smile a graceful recognition, but, being only a chance acquaintance, I was not introduced, neither was I invited to the Villa Guipuzcoa.