XVII
I was all ready to set out when Emma came to my room. She was surprised to find me in a happy mood.
“Where are you going in such a good humor?” she asked.
“Would that I did not have to go anywhere! Why, to see Emigdio, who complains incessantly of my unfaithfulness whenever I meet him.”
“How unfair he is!” she exclaimed, laughing. “You, inconstant!”
“What are you laughing at?”
“Oh, at the unfairness of your friend, poor fellow.”
“No, no, you are laughing at something else.”
“It’s about this,” she said, taking up a small comb from my washstand, and coming up to me. “You must let me comb your hair, for you must know, O faithful sir, that one of your friend’s sisters is a monstrous pretty girl. What a pity it is,” she went on, combing my hair in her graceful way—“what a pity it is that our little gentleman has grown a trifle pale these days, for the dear girls can’t conceive of manly beauty without fresh color in the cheeks. But if Emigdio’s sister were well acquainted with—”
“You are a great chatterbox today.”
“Is that so. Well, you are quite joyful, anyway. Just look in the glass and tell me if I haven’t fixed you up splendidly.”
“What a visit it will be!” I exclaimed. Just then I heard María’s voice calling my sister.
“It will indeed. How much pleasanter it would be to take a walk among the rocks in the canyon of the Amaime, and enjoy the magnificent and lovely view, or to wander through the mountains like a wounded bullock, frightening zancudos and letting Mayo get covered with vermin, poor thing!”
“María is calling you.” I interrupted.
“I know what for.”
“What?”
“To help her do something which she ought not to.”
“May one know what it is?”
“No objection; she is waiting for me to go with her to gather flowers to take the place of these,” she said, pointing to the vase on my table. “If I were she I wouldn’t put a single bud there again.”
“If you knew …”
“If you knew.”
My father put an end to our talk by calling me from his room.
As I went to him I found him by the window, examining the works of a beautiful watch, and saying, “It is an admirable piece of work, well worth thirty pounds.”
He turned to me and added, “This is the watch I ordered from London; just look at it.”
“It is much finer than the one you carry,” said I, scrutinizing it.
“But mine keeps excellent time; yours, however, is too small; you must give that to one of the girls, and take this one for yourself.”
Without giving me time to thank him, he continued: “Are you going to Emigdio’s house? Tell his father to get the field ready for our common pasture; his cattle must be ready, without fail, by the fifteenth of next month.”
I went back to my room to get my pistols. María was in the garden just under my window, and was handing to Emma a handful of montenegros, sweet-marjoram, and pinks; the most beautiful of all the pinks, for size and coloring, she held between her lips.
“Good morning, María,” said I, hastening out to get the flowers. She paled a little, but responded to my greeting, and as she did so the pink dropped from her mouth. She gave me the flowers, letting some fall at her feet, but picking them up again to hand to me; by that time she was all smiles.
“Will you exchange all these,” I asked, “for the pink you had in your mouth?”
“I have stepped on it,” she replied, stooping to look for it.
“Stepped on or not, I will give all these for it.”
She remained in the same position without replying.
“May I pick it up?”
Then she took it and gave it to me without looking at me.
All this while Emma was completely absorbed, or appeared to be, in arranging some new flowers.
I pressed the hand with which María gave me the pink, saying to her: “Thanks, thanks! Goodbye till afternoon.”
She lifted her eyes then, and her face had that most ravishing expression which a woman’s countenance can wear—when upon it are mirrored together tenderness and shame, reproachfulness and loving sorrow.