But after they had chatted for about an hour, as they sat side by side on the sofa, she looked at him with a slow, compa.s.sionate gaze, and said:

"Do you know, Mundo, that this is the last time we shall ever sit here alone together?"

The youth looked at her in speechless amazement; he did not, he would not, understand.

"Yes, I cannot keep up this mystery any longer. Escosura is very indignant, and with reason. Besides, I am ashamed--it is horrible of me.

And, after all, you have nothing to complain of. I have always been nice to you. If I ever loved a man truly, it was you, and the proof of it is that it has lasted so long. But nothing in this world can last for ever, and as matters stand we had better part. You see, Mundo, I am growing old--you are but a boy. If I did not break with you, sooner or later you would throw me over. Such is life. Though you still think me handsome, these are but the last remains of beauty. I must bid farewell to all the follies we have indulged in together, but I shall always look back on them with pleasure. I swear to you that you will always symbolise to me the happiest period of my life. So now, henceforth, we will still be good friends. It will always be a satisfaction to me to be able to serve you, for I owe you many hours of happiness."

The young man listened to this cruel speech, motionless and stricken.

His face was perfectly colourless.

"Do you mean it?" he said at last, in a husky voice.

"Yes, my dear boy, yes. I mean it," she replied, with the same sad, patronising smile.

"It is impossible! It cannot be!" he exclaimed vehemently, and starting to his feet he looked down on her with a mixture of horror and indignation.

This expression in his eyes roused her pride.

"But you will see that it can be!" she retorted with a touch of irony which was the height of cruelty.

He stood frozen for a moment, gazing at her with intense anguish, then he fell on his knees at her feet, with clasped hand, imploring her:

"For G.o.d's sake, do not kill me! Do not kill me!"

Clementina's face softened, and her voice broke a little.

"Come, Mundo," said she, "do not be a baby. Get up. This had to come.

You will find other women far more worthy than I."

But the young man held her knees clasped, kissing them in a frenzy of grief, his whole frame shaken by sobs.

"This is horrible, horrible, horrible!" he kept saying. "Oh! what have I done that you should kill me with misery?"

"Come, come," she said, gently stroking his hair. "Get up, be reasonable. Do you not see that this is ridiculous?"

"What do I care?" he cried, his face hidden in her silk skirts. "For you I would be ridiculous in the eyes of the whole world."

Clementina tried to soothe him, but without any emotion or pity. There is no wild beast more cruel than a woman whose love is satiated. She let his grief have its way for a while, and when he grew calmer she rose.

"I am grateful to you for all this feeling, Mundo. I, too, have gone through a terrible struggle before I could make up my mind to part."

"It is false!" cried Raimundo, still kneeling, with his elbows on the sofa. "If you still loved me, you could not be so cruel, so base."

Clementina stood silent for a minute, looking at his shoulders in great irritation. At last, touched by pity, she said:

"I forgive you the insult in consideration of the agitation you are in.

Though you may abuse me you will still be able to think of me with affection; and even when you have quite forgotten me, the memory of your face and the happy hours we have pa.s.sed together will remain engraved on my heart. But now we must come to an explanation," she added, in a sterner tone. "Let us be worthy of each other, Raimundo. You must, please, take a hackney coach to your house and bring me back every line I ever wrote to you, that we may burn them. I have none of yours; you know I always destroyed them immediately."

Raimundo did not stir. After waiting a few moments she went up behind him, leaned over him, and laid her hands on his cheeks, saying kindly:

"Foolish boy! Am I the only woman in the world?"

He thrilled at the touch of those soft hands, and, turning suddenly, seized them and covered them with kisses, pressed them to his heart, laid them on his brow.

"Yes, Clementina, the only woman; or, if there are others, I do not know them--I do not want to know them. But is it true? Is it true that you do not love me?"

And his tearful eyes looked up at her with such an expression of woe that she could not but lie.

"I never said I did not love you, but only that we can meet no more--like this."

"It is the same thing."

"No, it is not the same thing, foolish boy. I may love you, and yet, in consequence of special circ.u.mstances, I may not be able--we cannot have everything we wish for in this world." And she wandered into incoherent argument and specious reasoning, which she knew was false, and could not utter without hesitancy; the same commonplaces, repeated in different words, trying to give them the weight they lacked by emphasis and gesticulation.

But Raimundo was not listening. In a few minutes he rose, dried away his tears, and left the room without a word. Clementina watched him in surprise.

"I will wait for you," she called after him into the pa.s.sage.

Twenty minutes later he returned, carrying a parcel.

"Here are your letters," he said with apparent calm, but his voice was thick and his face deadly pale.

Clementina glanced at him keenly, not without some uneasiness. But she controlled herself, and said simply:

"Thank you very much, Mundo. Now, we will burn them, if you please, in the kitchen."

He made no reply. They went together to the cold, unfurnished kitchen, which no one ever used, and Clementina, with her own hand, laid the packet on the hearth. But suddenly, just as she was about to strike the match which Raimundo had given her, she paused. Then she said, with a smile:

"Do you know that this is dreadfully prosaic? To burn my love-letters on a kitchen hearth! It seems to me that they might have a more romantic end. Shall we go and burn them in the fields? That will give us a last walk together and a fitter parting."

"As you please," he said, in a scarcely audible voice.

"Very well. Fetch a carriage."

"I kept one."

"Then come."

Raimundo took up the packet of letters, and together they quitted the room whither they were never to return.

The hackney-coach carried them along the road to the eastward. It was an afternoon in Spring, misty and fresh. Clementina had closed the blinds for fear of being seen; but when they were outside the Alcala gate she asked Raimundo to let them down. Unluckily the moment was inopportune, for at that very moment they met an open carriage, in which sat Pepe Castro with Esperancita Calderon, now his wife. She had barely time to lean back in the corner and cover her face with her hand, and even so was not sure that they had not recognised her.

Raimundo, by a great effort, had recovered some self-control, but not completely. Clementina did all she could to divert his mind, talking to him, like a friend, of indifferent matters, of their acquaintances, and taking it for granted that he would continue to visit at her house. When Castro and his wife had gone past she discussed them with much animation.

"You see, I was right, Mundo. They have not been married three months, and Pepe and his father-in-law are squabbling over money matters. No one knows Calderon better than I. If he does not die before long, the poor children will be dreadfully hard up, for they will never get any money out of him."

Raimundo replied to her remarks, affecting a calm demeanour, but there was a peculiar accent in his voice which the lady could not help noticing. It seemed foggy, as though it had pa.s.sed through many tears.