XXVI

Up to that time, I had succeeded in preventing Carlos from taking me into his confidence about the proposal which, in an evil hour for him, had brought him to our house. But as soon as we were alone in my room, where he took me under the pretext of desiring to rest and read, I saw that he was going to put me in the difficult situation which I had been so much dreading, and from which up to that time I had escaped only by shrewd management. He stretched himself on my bed, complaining of the heat; and when I said I would have some fruit brought, he remarked that fruit did not agree with him since he had had the malarial fever. Then I went up to my shelves, asking him what he wanted to read.

“Oh, don’t let’s read anything,” he replied.

“Would you like to go and bathe in the river?”

“The sun has given me a headache.”

I offered him an alkali to relieve it.

“No, no,” he replied, refusing it, “it will go away.”

Then he struck his boots with the whip he held in his hand, and said: “I swear I’ll never hunt again. Caramba! to miss a shot like that!”

“Oh, everybody does sometimes.”

“Everybody? I’m the only one who ever missed a deer at that distance.”

After a moment’s silence, he said, looking about the room as if in search of something: “What have they done with the flowers which were here yesterday? They did not bring them back today.”

“If I had known that it would please you to see them here, I would have had them brought. You were not fond of flowers in Bogotá.”

I began turning over the leaves of a book which was lying open on the table.

“I never was,” replied Carlos; “but⁠—don’t read, old fellow! Listen⁠—sit down here by me, for I have something very interesting to tell you. Shut the door.”

There was no escape for me. I made an effort to command my features in the best way I could, resolved to conceal from Carlos, at all hazards, the immense stupidity of taking me into his confidence. But his father just then came to the door, and saved me from the torture which I was expecting.

“Carlos,” said Don Jerónimo, from the outside, “we need you out here.”

There was something in his tone that seemed to signify, “The affair is already far advanced.”

Carlos imagined that things were going on gloriously. At a bound he was on his feet, replying, “I will be there immediately,” then he went out.

If I had not then been pretending to read with the utmost indifference, he would probably have come up to me and said, smilingly, “In view of the surprise I am going to give you, you must pardon me for not having told you anything about it⁠ ⁠…” But I must have seemed to him as unconcerned at what was going on as I pretended to be; and that was a great gain.

From the footsteps of the two, I perceived that they were going into my father’s room.

Not desiring to expose myself again to the danger of having Carlos speak to me of his affairs, I went towards my mother’s apartments. María was in the sewing-room; from her chair fell the foamy skirt of her white muslin, here and there caught up with loops of blue ribbon; her hair, not yet braided, hung in curls round her shoulders. On the rug at her feet, Juan had gone to sleep, surrounded by his toys. She was lightly turning her head backward, as if to watch the child; the piece of lawn which she was sewing had fallen from her hands to the rug.

As soon as she heard steps, she lifted her eyes, brushed her hand across her temples to put back the hair that was not there, and, blushing, leaned forward hastily to pick up her sewing.

“Where is my mother?” I asked her, leaving off looking at her to admire the beauty of the sleeping boy.

“In papa’s room.”

Finding in my face what she timidly looked for, her lips began to smile as she said this. I kneeled down and wiped the forehead of the little fellow with my handkerchief.

“Oh, dear,” said María, “I did not realize that he had gone to sleep. I must put him to bed.”

She went out with Juan, but returned after a few moments and resumed her seat; I had placed my own near it. She was arranging the things in her work-box, which Juan had disordered, when I said to her, “Have you talked with my mother today about a certain proposition of Carlos’s?”

“Yes,” she replied, without looking at me, and prolonging her occupation with the box.

“What did she say to you? Leave that now, and let us talk seriously.”

She still looked for something on the floor, and at last, assuming an air of affected gravity, though she could not hide the vivid blush on her cheeks or the brilliance of her eyes, she answered, “Many things.”

“What things?”

“Those which you agreed she should tell me.”

“Tell me what my mother said to you.”

“She did not give me permission to repeat them; but what I answered her, that certainly I can tell.”

“Very well, what was it?”

“I told her⁠ ⁠… no, I can’t tell that either.”

“But you will tell me some time, won’t you?”

“Yes; but not today.”

“My mother has informed me that you are minded to answer him as you ought, so that he will understand that you fittingly appreciate the honor he does you.”

She looked steadily at me then, without replying.

“That is the way it should be,” I went on.

She lowered her eyes and continued silent, absorbed, apparently, in arranging the needles in order upon her needle-cushion.

“María, didn’t you hear me?” I added.

“Yes.”

Again she met my eyes, which I could not take from her face. Then I saw tears glistening on her lashes.

“Why, what are you crying for?” I asked.

“I am not crying. Why, did I cry?”

She took my handkerchief and hastily wiped her eyes.

“They have caused you suffering with this, haven’t they? If it makes you sad, do not let us talk of it.”

“Oh no; let us talk.”

“Is it a great trial to you to make up your mind to listen to what Carlos is going to say to you today?”

“I must try to please mamma. But she promised me that I should not be alone. You will be there, won’t you?”

“Why should I? How could he speak to you?”

“Well, you must be as near as possible.”

She stood in a listening attitude.

“Mamma is coming,” she continued, putting her hand in mine, and allowing me to press it to my lips⁠—a favor she was accustomed to grant me at parting when she wished to make my happiness complete. My mother came in, and María, on the point of going, said to me, “The bath?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“And the orangeade when you are there?”

“Yes.”

My eyes must have put as much tenderness into these replies as my heart desired to do, for she, pleased with my feigning, smiled at my answers.