He had not lost his head on the present occasion, as he had formerly
done when his passion had been anything but sincere. He was perfectly
conscious that Maria Consuelo was now the principal person concerned in
his life and that the moment would inevitably have come, sooner or
later, in which he must have told her so as he had done on this day. He
had not yielded to a sudden impulse, but to a steady and growing
pressure from which there had been no means of escape, and which he had
not sought to elude. He was not in one of those moods of half-senseless,
exuberant spirits, such as had come upon him more than once during the
winter after he had been an hour in her society and had said or done
something more than usually rash. On the contrary, he was inclined to
look the whole situation soberly in the face, and to doubt whether the
love which dominated him might not prove a source of unhappiness to
Maria Consuelo as well as to himself. At the same time he knew that it
would be useless to fight against that domination, for he knew that he
was now absolutely sincere.
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