"Who are you talking about, papa? Here to-day! and three times last week, no one comes here so often but Don Ciriaco Asneiros."
"Don Ciriaco, the gallant major, who is winning his way up from grade to grade, who is the confidential friend of Marshal Liniers, and who will soon be one of the most powerful men in Buenos Aires. Of whom else should I speak but of him? Why does he come here so often if it is not to see you, and who is there that talks to you so much as he does?"
"Don Ciriaco!" exclaimed Magdalen, and she hung her head in bewilderment. It was true as her father said that he came very often, true also that when others were there he almost monopolised her conversation, but he had never given her the slightest reason to believe that he had any tender feeling for her, in fact he made no secret to her of his boundless admiration for her friend Dolores Ponce de Leon, and she had felt pity for him, and had shown it to him in many ways, for she saw that he had small hope that his love would ever be returned, and she thought herself that it was utterly impossible that it should be so. So she had felt pity for him, and had shown him great sympathy and consideration, for was she not also indulging in a hopeless love. Now her father spoke to her of him as a possible husband. She thought of some jesting words which Doña Josefina had said to her not many weeks ago, concerning the success of a gallant soldier who both in war and in love carried everything before him. These words had dyed her own cheeks crimson, as she thought of a soldier who was to her the impersonation of all that was brave and noble, but could it be possible that Doña Josefina had meant quite another man, no other than this Don Ciriaco? Then she began to hate this Don Ciriaco, and to think of the awkward manners and of the rude speech which had made him a laughing-stock to the polished youth among whom she had first met him at the house of Doña Josephina.
Don Alfonso waited for a space to see what answer his daughter would give him, but as he got no further reply than that one exclamation, Don Ciriaco! he spoke again.
"And why not Don Ciriaco?" said he. "Why have you encouraged him to come here so often to see you if you are to be frightened when I speak about him?"
"Don Ciriaco, papa! Don Ciriaco never came here to see me. If no one else is here he always talks to you, and if he comes when you are out he always waits till you come back. He comes to see you, papa, he thinks much about you, he talks more to me about you than about anything else. He seems never to be tired of listening when I talk to him about you."
"About me!" exclaimed Don Alfonso, startled. "What can you find to tell him about me?"
"Hundreds of things, papa. You have no idea what strange questions he asks me at times."
"What questions? Tell me what questions he asks you?"
"If you are away he always asks me where you have gone, and how long you have been away, and when you will be back. And he always wants to know all about every one who comes to see you, especially about Don Carlos Evaña, and what he comes to see you for, and what he talks to you about. Several times he has asked me if you get any letters from Europe or from Rio Janeiro. I think he is very rude to ask me such questions, I have told him so more than once and have refused to answer him, but he will ask them, I suppose he knows no better. Some of the young men at Doña Josefina's used to call him the barbarian."