At the end of two minutes the youth followed her, found the door ajar, and entered. Venturita's room was like its mistress, small, pretty, and seductive.

There was a sandalwood bedstead hung with brocaded silk hangings and covered with a blue silk coverlet; an ebony cabinet inlaid with ivory, which formed a desk when opened; a comfortable blue velvet armchair; a toilet table and looking-gla.s.s, also hung with silk; a mirrored wardrobe of sandalwood, like the bedstead; and a few gilt chairs completed the furniture; and the room was as redolent of sweet perfume as the sanctum of an odalisque.

"Oh, this is better than Cecilia's room!" said Gonzalo.

"When did you see that?" asked Venturita.

"A few days ago she showed it to me; bare walls, with a few second-rate pictures, a curtainless bed, a common wardrobe."

"Well, if she doesn't have it as I do, it is because she doesn't care to. I certainly had to get around papa at first. But my sister is so--well, she is as G.o.d made her. It is all alike to her. Everything pleases a commonplace person, doesn't it?"

"In this room there is so much taste and so much coquetry, and that there always is about you."

"Why do you accuse me of coquetry, you silly?" she asked, in her old mocking tone.

"Because it is true, and quite right so. Coquetry, when not excessive, adds attraction to beauty as spice adds flavor to food."

"And so I suit your taste! Well, look here; although coquetry may give attraction, or flavor, or what you like, I am not coquettish. You at least have no right to say so. I say--it seems to me--"

"It is true; you are right; you are quite right. I can not call you coquettish, because the coquetry I was speaking of is quite different."

"Do me the favor to sit down, for I think you have grown enough--and let us leave abstract questions."

Gonzalo dropped into the chair the girl offered him, still under the spell of her brilliant, mischievous eyes. From the minute he entered the room he experienced a delight, half physical, half spiritual, which dominated his senses and his spirit. The perfume that he inhaled mounted to his brain, and the magnetic glance of Venturita hypnotized him.

"You did wrong in bringing me to your room," he said, as he pa.s.sed his handkerchief over his forehead.

"Why?" she asked, opening and shutting her eyes several times, which were like stars at the close of a hot day in summer.

"Because I don't feel well," he returned, with the same smile.

"You really feel ill?" replied the girl, opening her eyes wide with an innocent expression.

"A little."

"Shall I call some one?"

"No; it is your eyes that hurt me."

"Oh, come!" she exclaimed, with a laugh, as if that were of no consequence; "then I will shut them."

"Oh, no; don't shut them, or I shall be much worse."

"Then I will go," she said, rising from her chair.

"That would kill me, my girl! Do you know why I am ill? It is because it kills me not to be able to kiss your eyes."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Venturita, with a burst of laughter. "How bad it must be! I am sorry not to be able to cure you."

"Will you let me die?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Let me kiss your hair, then."

"No."

"Your hands."

"No."

"Let me kiss something of yours. See, you are doing me a lot of harm."

"Kiss this glove," said the girl, laughing, and taking one from the toilet table. Gonzalo seized it, and kissed it pa.s.sionately several times.

The reader, who may have denounced Gonzalo in his heart as a disloyal, perfidious fellow, or at least weak, and maybe deserving the appellation of "a disagreeable character," as the critics say when the people in novels are not all as heroic and as clever as might be wished, must imagine himself in that little nest, as full of perfume as the chalice of a magnolia, with the youngest daughter of the Belinchons, dressed in a blue-ribboned peignoir, revealing a good part of her neck, like roses and milk, with her shining blue eyes on him, and a soft, melodious voice that moved his very soul, and if the girl gave him a glove, saying "kiss it," he must think whether he could refrain from doing so.

"You must calm yourself, Gonzalo," she said, with a smile that would have bewitched St. Anthony.

"Yes, yes."

"Very well. Now we must talk seriously and review the situation."

Gonzalo became grave.

"After what you said to me three days ago I did think that before now you would have said something to mama, or papa, or that you would have written. But no; you not only let the time slip by, so that things get worse every day, but I see that you are more affectionate and attentive to Cecilia than ever."

Gonzalo made a negative gesture.

"Yes; I saw you a moment ago through the keyhole of the room. Nothing escapes me. Now this is very bad if you don't love her; and if you do love her, it is treating me badly."

"Are you not yet sure that you alone possess my heart?" said the young man, raising his eyes toward her.

"No."

"Then yes, yes; a thousand times yes. But I can not treat Cecilia in a cold, indifferent manner. That would be very ugly. I prefer to tell her plainly and end the matter once for all."

"Then tell her."

"I do not dare."

"Then don't tell her, and you and I will have done with each other.

Better so," returned the girl with impatience.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't speak like that, Ventura! I shall think you don't love me. You must understand that my position is awkward, strange, and terrible. To be on the eve of marrying an excellent girl; then without any quarrel whatever, without any warning of any kind, to suddenly say to her: 'It is all over. I can not marry you because I do not love you, and I never have loved you,' is the most brutal and hateful thing that has ever been known. Besides, I don't know how your parents will take my behavior. It is most probable that, justly indignant on her behalf, they will load me with reproaches and forbid me the house."

"Very well; marry her--and go in peace!" said Venturita, turning somewhat pale.

"That I'll never do. I marry you, or n.o.body."