He agreed to the extent that she was a very foolish girl. In turn she studied him carefully.
"You seem to have no heart," she announced finally; "not because you don't love me, but in affairs generally; but I can tell you a secret--you have! It's as plain as water. What you think you are--poof!" She blew across the open palm of her hand.
"I hope not," he returned anxiously. "But you are too young, even if you are to be married, to know about or to discuss such things. As Andrés' best friend I must caution you--"
He was, now, genuinely sorry that he had, but he replied that it had been no more than the salute of a brother. "You had better go in," he continued; "when they realize we are out here there will be a stir, perhaps you will be put to bed."
"I might make a scandal," she deliberated, "throw myself on you and cry as loudly as possible." A smile appeared upon her fresh charming lips at his expression of dismay. "Then you would have to marry me."
"I shall never speak directly to you again," she concluded; "so you must remember what I say, that you are not what you'd like to be."
She was, he thought, in spite of her loveliness, a very disagreeable little girl. That designation, ludicrously inadequate, he forced upon himself. With a flutter of her skirts she was gone. The afternoon was so still that he could hear the drilling of soldiers by the shore, the faint guttural commands and the concerted grounding of muskets. Narcisa and her unpleasant prediction faded from his mind. Standing on the balcony he imagined a vast concourse gathered below with upturned faces, waiting for him to speak. He heard the round periods, the sonorous Spanish, he delivered, welcoming, in the name of the people, their newly gained independence, and extending to them the applause and reassurances of the United States.
"You have won this for yourselves," he proclaimed, "by your valor and faith and patience; and no alien, myself least of all, could have been indispensable to you. What I was privileged to do was merely to hold together some of the more inglorious but necessary parts of your struggle; to bring, perhaps, some understanding, some good will, from the world outside. You have added Cuba to the invaluable, the priceless, parts of the earth where men are free; a deed wrought by the sacrifice of the best among you. Liberty, as always, is watered by blood--" he hesitated, frowning, something was wrong about that last phrase, of, yes--the watered with blood part; sprinkled, nourished, given birth in? That last was the correct, the inevitable, form. The hollow disembodied voice of the drill sergeant floated up and then was lost in the beginning afternoon procession of carriages.