There was a gaunt leanness about
him which I am satisfied no amount of food could ever fatten. I think he
knew it too, and that accounted for his resignation. At length, just
before sunset, the boat returned, floating up the river with the tide,
old Bartolo steering and managing the brown sails. Felipa sprang up
joyfully: I thought she would spring into the boat in her eagerness.
What did she receive for her long vigil? A short word or two: that was
all. Christine and Edward had quarreled.
How do lovers quarrel ordinarily? But I should not ask that, for these
were no ordinary lovers: they were decidedly extraordinary.
"You should not submit to her caprices so readily," I said the next day
while strolling on the barren with Edward. (He was not so much cast
down, however, as he might have been.)
"I adore the very ground her foot touches, Kitty."
"I know it. But how will it end?"
"I will tell you: some of these days I shall win her, and then--she will
adore me."
Here Felipa came running after us, and Edward immediately challenged her
to a race: a game of romps began. If Christine had been looking from her
window, she might have thought he was not especially disconsolate over
her absence; but she was not looking. She was never looking out of
anything or for anybody. She was always serenely content where she was.
Edward and Felipa strayed off among the pine trees, and gradually I lost
sight of them.
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