So Maria was
mine. I had a grim feeling about it which I cannot describe. "I hope
the governor will be satisfied now," was my thought.
However, there is nothing I hate more than to see a woman cry. To be
the means of making her cry is intolerable.
"Please, please, don't! Oh, Maria, what a brute you make me feel.
_Please_ don't," I cried, and raising my cousin from her Niobe-like
attitude, I comforted her as well as I could. She only said, "Oh,
Regie dear, how kind you are," and laid her sleek head against my arm
with an air of rest and trustfulness that touched my generosity to the
quick. What right had I, after all, to accept an affection to which I
could make no similar return? "However," thought I, "it's done now;
and they say it's always more on one side than the other; and at least
I'm a gentleman. I care for no one else, and she shall never know it
was chiefly to please the governor. I suppose it will all come right."
Whilst I pondered, Maria had dried her eyes, and now sat up, gazing
before her, almost in her old attitude.
"I wonder, Regie dear," she said, presently--"I wonder how you found
out that I--that we--that I _cared_--"
"Oh, I don't know," said I, inanely, for I could not say that nothing
could be plainer.
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