Two interminable days and nights followed. I was happy and yet
suffering. A kind of troubled joy seemed to dominate every other
feeling. The hour of the assignation came, and I heard her softly
call, “Mateo.” We kissed passionately and a long love scene followed.
Questions, protestations, appeals. To hasten over what was to me a
time of great stress and strain, mental and physical, let me at once
say that Concha would in reality consent to nothing but this. I might
live with her, worship her, love her as fervently, truly, tenderly as
I liked, _but_ she was to be left wholly pure, utterly virginal. I
endured this state of things for two weeks. Concha then borrowed from
me a large sum to pay more debts, and the next day I found that mother
and daughter had fled again!