She admitted this with such a directness, such an air, that I
quite flushed and felt ill at ease. Whatever was passing in that
childish-looking head, behind that face so provoking, so rebellious?
What signified her decided moral attitude, her frank and, possibly,
honest eye, her sensuous mouth that seemed to tempt and yet defy. All
that I really knew was that she pleased me vastly, that I was enchanted
to have found her again, and looked forward to finding other chances
of being with her. We reached her home. Down-stairs at the doorway I
bought her some mandarines. At the top floor she gave three little
knocks at a door and I stood before her mother, a dark woman, who had
once been beautiful.
Then began confidences; they seemed endless. The mother said she was
the widow of an engineer, and told me a story I had heard elsewhere
twenty times.
“Ah, Caballero, we should have been rich, we two, had we but followed
evil ways. But sin has never passed the evening here!”
Conchita during this discourse was putting powder on her cheeks. She
turned to me with a smile transfiguring her mouth.
Finally I laid down four banknotes and arranged that Conchita was not
to return to the factory. I called again the next day. She was alone.
That day she came and sat upon my knees and kissed me with her burning
mouth. I left but to return, alas! not once, but twenty times more. I
was in love like the youngest, the most foolish of men. You must have
known such madness yourself and will understand me. Each time I left
her rooms I counted the hours until the next meeting, and those hours
never seemed to go. Little by little I got to pass the whole day with
them, paying all the expenses and the debts too. This cost me a good
deal of money. How Conchita and I talked!
But she was impenetrable, mysterious. She seemed to love me; possibly
I really loved her. To-day I do not know what to think. To all my
pleadings she answered merely, “Later.” That resolution I could not
break. I swore to leave her and she told me to go. I threatened her,
even with my violence: it left her unconcerned. When loaded with
presents she accepted them upon her own terms. Nevertheless, when I
entered her place, I saw a light in her eyes that was not, I believe, a
feigned one.
She slept nine hours at night and had a siesta of three hours. She did
nothing else. The work of the place was her mother’s affair. During
one whole week she refused to get up at all. Her conception of the
duties of the day was very Spanish. But I do not know from what country
came her conception of love. After twelve weeks of wooing I saw in her
maddening smile the same promises and certainly the same resistance.
At last, one day, I took her mother into my confidence, and confessing
my love invoked her aid. After a night and a morning that were
insupportable through suspense, I received a four-line letter--
“_If you had loved me you would have waited. I wished to give myself
to you. You have asked that I shall be sold to you. Never again shall
you see me._
“CONCHITA.”
When I reached their rooms in Seville they had left with all their
belongings.