Volume I Part 23 (2/2)
”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 s.h.i.+ning 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.”
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