"
"Ah, yes--you need have no fear on that score. But still--in your
place--you men, you love differently from us. And not so well," she
added with a sigh, as Anne appeared with her fur-lined cloak, and
announced that the carriage was waiting.
Some hours later Wilhelm was startled out of a deep sleep by burning
kisses. He opened his dazed eyes, and, blinking in the lamplight,
saw Pilar standing by the bed as if in a cloud. She held her great
bouquet in one hand, and with the other was plucking the roses and
gardenias to pieces, and strewing the petals over his head and face,
as she did in the sunny afternoons at St. Valery. She must have been
engaged in this pastime for a considerable time, for the pillows and
quilt were covered with flowers, and his hair was full of them. As
neither Pilar's entry with the lamp nor the shower of blossoms had
succeeded in wakening him, she had leaned over him and roused him
with a kiss.
"Oh, sleepy head!" she cried, and continued to rain flowers on his
dazzled, blinking eyes. "At least you have been dreaming of me?"
"To tell the truth," he returned, "I have not dreamed at all."
"And I have never left off thinking about you all the time, and have
longed so for you. Look here!"
She took a lamp off the chimney-piece, and held up her ball
programme before his eyes.
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