“Will you let me look at the direction?” said the student, changing his manner and the tone of his voice completely, as he addressed the young girl.
The girl handed him the note, for it was only a note.
“Why, it is for mamma!” he said, as he looked at the superscription. “Come with me; I will show you where the house is. Do you, driver, follow in our resplendent wake with{50} your imperial chariot, drawn by that stately swan.”
{50}
“Many thanks, Señorito,” said the girl in a sweet and well modulated voice, and with the sing-song accent peculiar to the Galicians of the coast. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself. I can see the door of the house from here; the driver pointed it out to me.”
“Will you let me look at the direction?”
“It is no trouble; I am going that way,” replied the young man.{51}
{51}
Without offering any further objection the girl walked with him in the direction of the house. Rogelio instinctively took her left as he would have done with a lady. He had not gone a dozen steps, however, before he repented of his gallantry. In the first place, his companions would ridicule him unmercifully if they should chance to meet him accompanying so politely a girl wearing a shawl over her head and dressed in a plain merino skirt. In the second place, Rogelio was at the age when a boy brought up under maternal influence in the pure atmosphere of home cannot avoid a feeling of painful shyness when brought in contact with persons of the other sex with whom he is unacquainted. It is true that women of an inferior station did not confuse him so much; young ladies were like death to him; he always fancied they were making fun of him, that everything they said to him was only in sport; to draw him{52} out, enjoy his confusion, and ridicule him afterward among themselves with malicious and pitiless irony. Walking at the side of this girl dressed in mourning, however, he experienced the same sort of confusion, for, notwithstanding her humble dress, neither in her manner nor in her appearance was there a trace of vulgarity. “Shall I speak to her?” he said to himself. “Will she laugh at me? She will laugh at me more if I say nothing. No, I must say something to her.” What he said—and with the utmost seriousness, was:
{52}
“Do you know whom that letter is from that you are
Prev.
Back
Top