My friend Juan, however, suffered me not to linger here, but rushing furiously at a door before me, began a vigorous attack for admittance.
As I knew this to be the drawing-room, I opened the door and walked in, but no one was to be seen; a half-open book lay upon an ottoman, and a fan, which I recognized as an old acquaintance, was beside it, but the owner was absent.
I sat down, resolved to wait patiently for her coming, without any announcement of my being there.

I was not sorry, indeed, to have some moments to collect my thoughts, and restore my erring faculties to something like order.
As I looked about the room, it seemed as if I had been there but yesterday.
The folding-doors lay open to the garden, just as I had seen them last; and save that the flowers seemed fewer, and those which remained of a darker and more sombre tint, all seemed unchanged.

There lay the guitar to whose thrilling chords my heart had bounded; there, the drawing over which I had bent in admiring pleasure, suggesting some tints of light or shadow, as the fairy fingers traced them; every chair was known to me, and I greeted them as things I cared for.
While thus I scanned each object around me, I was struck by a little china vase which, unlike its other brethren, contained a bouquet of dead and faded flowers; the blood rushed to my cheek; I started up; it was one I had myself presented to her the day before we parted.

It was in that same vase I placed it; the very table, too, stood in the same position beside that narrow window.

What a rush of thoughts came pouring on me! And oh!--shall I confess it ?--how deeply did such a mute testimony of remembrance speak to my heart, at the moment that I felt myself unloved and uncared for by another! I walked hurriedly up and down, a maze of conflicting resolves combating in my mind, while one thought ever recurred: "Would that I had not come there!" and yet after all it may mean nothing; some piece of passing coquetry which she will be the very first to laugh at.