“Drowned!...I must confess that at first I was somewhat afraid.  Not so much of dying, for I’m somewhat tired of life—­as you will realize after you’ve known me a little longer.  But a death like that, suffocated in that mud, that filthy, dirty water that smells so bad, doesn’t at all appeal to me.  If it were some green, transparent Swiss lake!...  I want beauty even in death; I’m concerned with the ‘final posture,’ like the Romans, and I was afraid of perishing here like a rat in a sewer....  And nevertheless, I couldn’t help laughing at my aunt and our poor servants to see the fright they were in!...  Now the water is no longer rising, and the house is strong.  Our only trouble is that we’re cut off, and I’m waiting for daylight to come so that we can see where we are.  The sight of all this country changed into a lake must be very beautiful, isn’t it, Rafael?”

“You’ve probably seen far more interesting things,” the young man replied.

“I don’t deny that; but I’m always most impressed by the sensation of the moment.”

And she fell silent, showing by her sudden seriousness the vexation that his distant allusion to her past had caused.

For some moments neither of them spoke; and it was Leonora who finally broke the silence.

“The truth is, if the water had gone on rising, we would have owed our lives to you....  Let’s see, now, frankly:  why did you come?  What kind inspiration made you think of me.  You hardly know me!”

Rafael blushed with embarrassment, and trembled from head to foot, as if she had asked him for a mortal confession.  He was on the point of uttering the great truth, baring in one great explosion all his thoughts and dreams and dreads of past days.  But he restrained himself and grasped wildly for an answer.

“My enthusiasm for the artist,” he replied timidly.  “I admire your talent very much.”

Leonora burst into a noisy laugh.

“But you don’t know me!  You’ve never heard me sing!...  What do you know about my “talent,” as they call it?  If it weren’t for that chatterbox of a Cupido, Alcira would never dream that I am a singer and that I’m somewhat well-known—­except in my own country.”

Rafael was crushed by the reply; he did not dare protest.

“Come, Rafael,” the woman continued affectionately, “don’t be a child and try to pass off the fibs boys use to deceive mama with.  I know why you came here.  Do you imagine you haven’t been seen from this very balcony hovering about here every afternoon, lurking in the road like a spy?  You are discovered, sir.”

The shy Rafael thought the balcony was collapsing underneath his feet.  He shivered in abject terror, drew the fur cloak tighter around him, without knowing what he was about, and shook his head in energetic denial.

“So it’s not true, you fraud?” she said, with comic indignation.  “You deny that since we met up at the Hermitage you have been taking all your walks in this neighborhood? Dios mio!  What a monster of falsehood have we here?  And how brazenly he lies.”