misunderstandings. I will speak to you only in the language of truth.
Are you by chance a young lady whose acquaintance I have made on the
promenade or at a party, and with whom I propose to spend a pleasant
hour or two? No, you are my cousin. You are something more. Rosario,
let us at once put things on their proper footing. Let us drop
circumlocutions. I have come here to marry you."

Rosario felt her face burning, and her heart was beating violently.

"See, my dear cousin," continued the young man. "I swear to you that
if you had not pleased me I should be already far away from this place.
Although politeness and delicacy would have obliged me to make an effort
to conceal my disappointment, I should have found it hard to do so. That
is my character."

"Cousin, you have only just arrived," said Rosarito laconically, trying
to laugh.

"I have only just arrived, and I already know all that I wanted to know;
I know that I love you; that you are the woman whom my heart has long
been announcing to me, saying to me night and day, 'Now she is coming,
now she is near; now you are burning.'"

These words served Rosario as an excuse for breaking into the laugh
that had been dimpling her lips. Her soul swelled with happiness; she
breathed an atmosphere of joy.

"You persist in depreciating yourself," continued Pepe, "but for me you
possess every perfection. You have the admirable quality of radiating
on all around you the divine light of your soul. The moment one sees you