“Well, Gatchutcha, you have at last spoken to your mother of Uncle Ignacio?” asked Ramuntcho, very late, the same night, in the alley¹ of the garden, under rays of the moon.
 
“Not yet, I have not dared.—How could I explain that I know all these things, since I am supposed not to talk with you ever, and she has forbidden me to do so?—Think, if I were to make her suspicious!—There would be an end to everything, we could not see each other again! I would like better to wait until you left the country, then all would be indifferent to me—”
 
“It is true!—let us wait, since I am to go.”
 
He was going away, and already they could count the evenings which would be left to them.
 
Now that they had permitted their immediate² happiness to escape, the happiness offered to them in the prairies of America, it seemed preferable to them to hasten the departure of Ramuntcho for the army, in order that he might return sooner. So they had decided³ that he would enlist⁴ in the naval⁵ <............