"
"Do not make fun of me, you sweet, bad creature; if I had had as
much sense then as I have now, I should have loved you then as I
love you now, and I would have belonged to you, even if it had cost
me my father's love." She gazed thoughtfully at the picture in which
her innocent past confronted her in so angelic a form, and continued
in tones of indescribable tenderness: "Why did I not know you
sooner? Is it my fault that you who were made for me should live so
far away and wait so long before you came to me? How I should have
rejoiced to be able to offer you the pure young creature of this
picture! But I can but give you all I have--my first real love, the
virginity of my heart--surely that is something?"
Her hazel eyes pleaded for a great deal of compassion, and her full
scarlet lips for a great deal of love, and only a heart of cast iron
could have refused her either.
Beyond the salon was a roomy dining-room, hung with magnificent
Cordova leather, and from this a glass door led into a pretty little
garden with an arbor in the corner, and some old trees. High, ivy-
clad walls inclosed the square green spot of nature. Up the stairs,
on the walls of which hung many valuable pictures, for which there
was no place in the rooms, Pilar and Wilhelm mounted to the second
floor.
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