me here now. And I hear other things, too, but from my maid, about
the dancer, La Clavel. You gamble, it seems, and drink as well."

That, he replied, was no more than half true; it was often necessary
for him to appear other than he was. He studied her at length: she
had grown more lovely, positively beautiful, in the past month; the
maturity of her engagement to marry had already intensified her.
Narcisa's skirt had been lowered and her hair, which had hung like a
black fan, was tied with a ribbon.

"How do you like me?" she demanded. But when he told her very much,
she shook her head in denial. "I ought to be ashamed," she added, "but
I am not. Did you realize that, when we were out here before, I made
you a proposal? You ignored it, of course.... I am not ashamed of what
I did then, either. Afterwards, standing here, I wanted to throw
myself to the street; but, you see, I hadn't the courage. It's better
now, that time has gone--I'll get fat and frightful."

"This Carmache," Charles Abbott asked, "don't you like, no, love him?"
She answered:

"He is, perhaps, fifty--I am fifteen--and quite deaf on one side, I
can never remember which; and he smells like bagasse. I've only seen
him once, for a minute, alone, and then he wanted me to sit on his
knees. I said if he made me I'd kill him some night when he was
asleep. But he only laughed and tried to catch me. You should have
heard him breathing; he couldn't. He called me his Carmencita. But, I
suppose, I shall come to forget that, as well. I wanted you to know
all about it; so, when you hear of my marriage, you will understand
what to look for."

"That is all very wrong!" Charles exclaimed.

In reply she said, hurriedly, "Kiss me."

That was wrong, too, he repeated, afterward. Her warmth and tender
fragrance clung to him like the touch of flower petals. She turned
away, standing at the front of the balcony, her arms, bare under elbow
ruffles, resting on the railing. The flambeau trees in the Parque
Isabel were like conflagrations. Her head drooped on her slender neck
until it almost rested, despairingly, on the support before her. "I
hate your northern way of living," her voice was suppressed,
disturbingly mature; "I hate their bringing you into the house, only
to break my heart. Charles," she laid an appealing hand on his sleeve,
"could you do this--help me to run away? We have cousins in New York
who would receive me. If you could just get me on a steamer!"