Lucía had just finished drying her wet garments at the fire that Artegui
had lighted for her. Her hair, which the rain had flattened against her
forehead, was beginning to curl slightly at the temples; her clothing
was still steaming, but the beneficent warmth pervading her frame had in
some degree brought back her natural buoyancy of spirits. Only the
feathers of her hat, drooping sadly, notwithstanding their owner’s
efforts to restore to them their graceful curl by holding them to the
fire, bore witness to the ravages of the storm.
Artegui leaned back in an easy-chair, listless as usual, plunged in idle
revery. He was resting, doubtless, from the fatigue caused by lighting
the logs that burned so cheerfully in the fireplace, and ordering and
pouring out the tea, to which he had added a few drops of rum. Silent
and motionless now, his eyes rested alternately on Lucía and on the
fire, which formed a shifting red background to her head. While Lucía
had been incommoded by the weight of her wet garments and the pressure
of her damp shoes, she too had remained silent and constrained,
nervously fancying she still heard the pealings of the thunder and felt
the sting of the rain drops beating against her face, like needles.
Little by little the genial influence of the heat relaxed her stiffened
limbs and loosened her paralyzed tongue. She stretched her feet and
hands toward the blaze, spread out her skirts, to dry them equally, and
finally sat down on the floor, Turkish-fashion, the better to enjoy the
warmth of the fire, which she contemplated with fixed and absorbed gaze,
listening to the crackling of the logs as she watched them gradually
change from red to black.
“Don Ignacio,” she said suddenly.
“Lucía?”
“I wager you do not know what I am thinking of?”
“You will tell me.”
“The things that have been happening to me since yesterday are so
strange, and the life I have been leading so out of the usual
course--what you told me there--beside the pond, seems to me so
singular, so extraordinary, that I am wondering whether I did not fall
asleep in Miranda de Ebro and have not yet awakened. I must be still in
the railway-carriage; that is to say my body must be still there, for my
soul has flown away and is dreaming such wild dreams--against my will.”
“I don’t know what there is that is strange in anything that has
happened to you; on the contrary, it is all very commonplace and simple.
Your husband is left behind on the road. I meet you afterward by chance,
and stay with you to take care of you until he arrives. Neither more nor
less. Let us not weave a romance out of this.”
Artegui spoke with the same slow and disdainful intonation as usual.
“No,” persisted Lucía, “it is not what has happened to me that I find
strange. What I find strange is--you. Come, Don Ignacio, you know it
very well. I have never before seen any one who thinks as you think, or
who speaks as you speak. And therefore, at times,” she murmured, taking
her head between her hands, “the idea comes to me that I am still
dreaming.”
Artegui rose from his chair and drew near the fire. His manly figure
loomed up in the glowing light, and to Lucía, from her seat on the
floor, he looked taller than he really was.
“It is right,” he said, inclining himself before her, “that I should ask
your pardon. I am not in the habit of saying certain things to the first
person I meet, and still less to persons like you. I have talked a great
deal of nonsense, which naturally frightened you. Besides being out of
place, my conduct was in bad taste and even cruel. I acted like a fool
and I am sorry for it, believe me.”
Lucía, lifting up her face, looked at him in silence. The glow of the
fire turned her chestnut hair to gold, and cast a rosy hue over her
countenance. The eyes she raised to his, as he stood looking down at
her, were shining brightly.
“I have two temperaments,” Artegui resumed, “and, like a child, I give
way to the impulses of both without reflection. In general, I am what
my father was--firm of will, reticent, and self-controlled; but at times
my mother’s temperament governs me. My poor mother suffered when she was
very young, in her remote castle in Brittany, from nervous attacks, fits
of gloom, and mental disturbance which she has never succeeded in
overcoming completely, although she has suffered less from them since my
birth than she did before. She lost a part of her malady and I acquired
it. Is it to be wondered at if I sometimes act and speak, not like a
man, but like a woman or a child!”
“The truth is, Don Ignacio,” exclaimed Lucía, “that in your sober senses
you would not think what--what you said there.”
“In company with you,” he said, “with a young and loyal creature who
loves life, and feels, and believes, what business had I to speak of
anything sad, or to set forth abstruse theories, turning a pleasure
excursion into a lecture? Could anything be more absurd? I am a fool.
Lucía,” he ended, with naturalness and without bitterness, “you will
forgive me for my want of tact, will you not?”
“Yes, Don Ignacio,” she murmured, in a low voice.
Artegui drew his chair toward the fire and sat down, stretching out his
hands and feet toward the blaze.
“Are you still cold?” he asked Lucía.
“No, indeed; on the contrary, I am delightfully warm.”
“Let me feel your hands.”
Lucía, without rising, held out her hands to Artegui, who found that
they were soft and warm and soon released them.
“On account of the rain,” he continued, “I could not take you a little
farther, as I wished to do, to Biarritz, where there are very pretty
villas and parks in the English style. Indeed, we enjoyed scarcely
anything of the beautiful country. How fragrant the hay and the clover
were! And the earth. The smell of freshly turned earth is somewhat
pungent but pleasant.”
“What was most fragrant of all was a bed of mint growing by the pond. I
am sorry I did not bring a few of the plants with me.”
“Shall I go get you some? I would be back directly.”
“Heavens! What nonsense, Don Ignacio, to think of going for them now,”
said Lucía; but the pleasure caused by the offer dyed her cheeks with
crimson. “Do you hear how it is raining?” she added, to change the
subject.
“The morning gave no indication of the coming storm,” replied Artegui.
“France has, in general, a moist climate, and this basin of the Adour is
no exception to the rule. It was a pity not to have been able to drive
through Biarritz! There are many fine palaces and agreeable places of
resort there. I would have taken you to see the Virgin, who, from her
station on a rock, seems to command the troubled waters to be still.
There could not be a more artistic idea.”
“How! the Virgin!” said Lucía, greatly interested.
“A statue of the Virgin, standing among the rocks; at sunset the effect
is marvelous; the statue seems made of gold and is surrounded by a sea
of fire. It is like an apparition.”
“Oh, Don Ignacio, will you take me there to-morrow?” cried Lucía, with,
eager, wide-open eyes and clasped hands.
“To-morrow”--Artegui again relapsed into thought. “But, Señora,” he said
presently, in a changed voice, “your husband will probably arrive
to-day.”
“True.”
The conversation ceased of itself and both sat gazing silently into the
fire. Artegui added fresh logs, for the embers were now burning low. The
blazing brands crackled and occasionally one would burst open like a
ripe pomegranate, sending forth a shower of sparks. The fiery edifice
sank under the weight of the fresh materials. The flames gently licked
their new prey and then began to dart into it their asp-like tongues,
drawing from it with each ardent kiss a cry of pain. Although it was
scarcely past the meridian hour, the apartment was almost dark, so black
was the sky outside and so fierce the storm.
“You have not breakfasted yet, Lucía,” said Artegui, suddenly
remembering the fact, and rising. “I am going to give orders to have
your breakfast sent here.”
“And you, Don Ignacio?”
“I--will breakfast too, down-stairs in the dining-room. It is high time
now.”
“But why do you not breakfast here with me?”
“No, I will breakfast down-stairs,” he said, going toward the door.
“As you choose--but I am not hungry. Don’t send me anything. I feel--I
don’t know how.”
“Eat something--you have been chilled and you need something to restore
the circulation.”
“No--though if you were to breakfast here with me I might perhaps make
the effort,” she persisted, with the obstinacy of a self-willed child.
Artegui shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and pulled the bell-rope.
When the chambermaid entered the room a quarter of an hour later with
the tray, the fire was burning more brightly and merrily than ever, and
the two arm-chairs, one on either side of the fireplace, and the table
covered with a snowy cloth, invited to the enjoyment of the
unceremonious repast. The glass, the coolers, the salver, the vinegar
cruets, the silver bands of the mustard vessel sparkled in the light;
the radishes, swimming in a fine porcelain shell, looked like rose-buds,
the fried sole displayed its lightly browned back garnished with curled
parsley and slices of lemon of a pale gold color; the juicy beefsteak
rested in a lake of melted butter; and in the lace-like glasses sparkled
the deep garnet of the Burgundy and the ruddy topaz of the
Chateau-Yquem. Every time the waiter came and went to bring or to take
away a dish, he laughed to himself at the Spanish lovers, who had asked
for separate rooms to breakfast together in this way--_tête-à-tête_ by
the fire. As a Frenchman, he took advantage of the occasion to raise the
price of everything. He handed Artegui the list of wines, giving him at
the same time suggestions and advice.
“The gentleman will want iced champagne--I will bring it in a cooler, it
is more convenient. The pine-apples we have are excellent, I will bring
some--we receive our Malaga direct from Spain--ah, the Spanish wines!
there is no place like Spain for wines.”
And bottles continued to arrive, and the already formidable array of
glasses standing beside each of the guests to increase. There were wide
flat glasses, like the _crater_ of the ancients, for the foaming
champagne; narrow, green glasses, with handles, for the Rhine wine;
shallow glasses, like thimbles, with a short stem for the southern
Malaga. Lucía had taken only a few sips of each of the wines, but she
had tasted them all, one after another, through childish curiosity; and
now, with her head a little heavy, blissfully forgetful of the events of
the morning’s excursion, she sat leaning back in her chair, her bosom
heaving, her white teeth gleaming between her moist rosy lips when she
smiled--the smile of a bacchante who is still innocent and who for the
first time has tasted the juice of the grape. The atmosphere of the
closed room was stifling--pervaded with the savory odors of the
succulent dishes, the mild warmth of the fire, and the faint resinous
aroma of the burning logs. A charming subject it would have formed for a
modern anacreontic ode--the woman holding up her glass, the wine falling
in a clear and sparkling stream, the thoughtful looking man gazing
alternately at the disordered table and the smiling nymph with glowing
cheeks and sparkling eyes. Artegui felt so completely master of himself
that, melancholy and disdainful, he looked at Lucía as the traveler
looks at the wayside flower from which he voluntarily turns aside his
steps. Neither wines nor liqueurs, nor the soft warmth of the fire were
of avail now to draw the pessimist from his apathetic calm; through his
veins the blood flowed slowly, while through Lucía’s veins it coursed,
rapid, generous, and youthful. But for both the moment was one to be
remembered--one of supreme concord, of sweet forgetfulness; the past was
blotted out; the present was like a peaceful eternity shut within four
walls, in the pleasant drowsiness of the silent room. Lucía let both
arms hang over the arms of her chair, her fingers loosened their clasp,
and the glass they had held fell with a crystalline sound on the brass
fender, breaking into countless fragments. The young girl laughed at the
accident, and with half-closed eyes fixed upon the ceiling, yielded
unresistively to the feeling of lethargy that was stealing over her,--a
suspension, as it were, of all the faculties of being. Artegui,
meanwhile, calm and silent, sat upright in his chair, haughty as an
ancient stoic; his soul was pervaded by a bitter pleasure,--the
pleasure of feeling himself to be truly dead and of knowing that
treacherous nature had tried her arts in vain to resuscitate him.
And thus they might have remained for an indefinite period had not the
door suddenly opened to admit, not the waiter, still less the expected
Miranda, but a young man of some twenty-four or twenty-five years of
age, of medium height, and of abrupt and familiar manners. He had his
hat on, and the first objects to attract the eye in his person were the
gleaming pin of his necktie and his low-cut light yellow shoes, of a
somewhat daring fashion, like those of a _manolo_. The entrance of this
new personage effected a transformation in the scene; while Artegui rose
to his feet, furious, Lucía, restored to full consciousness, passed her
hand over her forehead and sat upright in her chair, assuming an
attitude of reserve, but unable to steady her gaze, which still
wandered.
“Hello, Artegui, you here? I saw your name just now in the register, and
I hurried up,” said the newcomer, with perfect self-possession. Then
suddenly, as if he had but just seen Lucía, he took off his hat and
bowed to her easily, without adding another word.
“Señor Gonzalvo,” responded Artegui, veiling his anger under an
appearance of icy reserve, “we must have become very intimate since
last we saw each other. In Madrid----”
“You are always so English--so English,” said the young man, showing
neither confusion nor embarrassment. “You see I am frank, very frank; in
Madrid we each had our business or our pleasures to attend to, but in a
foreign land it is pleasant to meet a compatriot. In fine, I beg your
pardon, I beg your pardon. I see that I have disturbed you. I regret it
for the lady’s sake----”
Here he bowed again, while his eyes, from between their half-closed
lids, cynically devoured Lucía’s countenance lighted by the glow of the
dying brands.
“No, stay!” cried Artegui, rising, and seizing the intruder hastily by
the arm, seeing that he had turned to leave the room. “Since you have
entered this apartment so unceremoniously, I wish you to understand that
you do not discover me in any discreditable adventure, nor is that the
reason of my displeasure at your intrusion.”
“Don’t say another word. I am not asking any questions,” said the young
man, shrugging his shoulders.
“Don’t imagine that I care a jot about what you think of _me_, but this
lady is--an honorable woman; owing to circumstances, which it is
unnecessary to explain, she is traveling under my protection until she
is joined by her husband,” and observing the half-suppressed smile on
his interlocutor’s face, he added:
“I advise you to believe what I say, for my reputation for truthfulness
is perhaps the only thing on which I set any value.”
“I believe you, I believe you”; returned the young man simply, and with
an accent of sincerity. “You have the name of being eccentric,
eccentric, but frank as well. Besides, I am an expert, an expert, an
expert in the matter, and I can recognize a lady----”
As he spoke he bowed for the third time to Lucía, with easy grace. The
latter rose with instinctive dignity, and with a serious and composed
air returned the salute. Artegui then advanced and uttered the
prescribed formula:
“Señor Don Pedro Gonzalvo, the Señora de Miranda.”
“Miranda--yes, yes, I saw the name, I saw the name on the hotel
register. I know a Miranda who was to have been married about this
time--an old bachelor, an old bachelor?”
“Don Aurelio?” Lucía asked involuntarily.
“Precisely. I am intimate, intimate with him.”
“He is my husband,” murmured Lucía.
The young man’s face flushed with eager curiosity, and he once more
fixed his small eyes on Lucía’s countenance, which he scanned with
implacable tenacity.
“Miranda--ah, so you are the wife, the wife of Aurelio Miranda!” he
repeated, without further comment. But discreetly-repressed curiosity
was so apparent in his manner, that Artegui imposed upon himself the
task of giving the young man a full and minute account of all that had
occurred. Gonzalvo listened in silence, repressing with the discreetness
of the man of the world the malicious smile that rose to his lips. It
was evident that the comical conjugal mishap of the middle-aged rake
diverted the youthful rake excessively. A stray sunbeam, breaking
through the gray clouds, threw into relief the blonde, lymphatic
countenance of the young man,--the freckled skin, the delicate but
characteristically marked features. His white hands, resembling those of
a woman, played with his steel watch-chain; on the little finger of one
of them gleamed a large carbuncle, side by side with another ring, a
school-girl’s simple trinket--a little cross of pearls set in a hoop of
gold, much too small for the finger it encircled.
“So that you know nothing, nothing of Miranda’s whereabouts,” he asked,
when he had heard the narration to the end.
“Nothing up to the present,” gravely answered Artegui.
“This is delightful! delightful!” muttered the young man under his
breath, laughing with his eyes rather than with his mouth. “Was there
ever such an adventure! Miranda must be a sight to see! a sight to see!”
Artegui looked at him fixedly, intercepting the indiscreet laughter of
his eyes. With an air of great gravity, he said:
“Are you a friend of Don Aurelio Miranda?”
“Yes, very much so, very much so,” lisped Gonzalvo, who had a habit of
dropping two or three letters in every word, repeating the word itself
two or three times to make amends; which was productive of a singular
confusion in his speech, especially when he was angry, when he would
jumble up or leave out entire words.
“Very much so, very much so,” he continued. “Everywhere, everywhere in
Madrid I used to meet him. He belonged at one time to the--what’s its
name--the Rapid Club, the Rapid Club, and he used to frequent with us
young men, with us young men, the--well, the Apollo, the Apollo.”
“I am very glad of it,” cried Artegui, without losing his air of
gravity for a moment. “Well then, Señora,” he continued, addressing
Lucía, “you have here what you stood so greatly in need of two days
ago--a friend of your husband’s, who has on all accounts a much greater
claim than I to serve as your escort until such time as Señor Miranda
may make his appearance.”
At this unexpected turn Gonzalvo smiled, bowing politely, like a man of
the world accustomed to all sorts of situations; but Lucía, a look of
astonishment on her still flushed face, drew back, as if in refusal of
the new escort offered to her.
This dumb show was interrupted by the entrance of the waiter who handed
to Artegui, on a salver, a blue envelope. It seemed impossible for
Artegui to be paler than he already was, and yet his cheeks grew
perceptibly whiter as, tearing open the envelope, he read the telegram
it contained. A cloud passed before his eyes, instinctively he grasped
the chimney-piece for support, leaning heavily against the mantle-shelf.
Lucía, recovering from her first astonishment, rushed toward him and
placing her clasped hands on his arm said to him with eager entreaty:
“Don Ignacio, Don Ignacio, don’t leave me in this way. For the little
time that now remains--what trouble would it be for you to stay? I
don’t know this gentleman. I have never seen him before----”
Artegui listened mechanically, like one in a state of catalepsy. At last
he found his voice; he looked at Lucía in surprise, as if he now saw her
for the first time, and in faint accents said:
“I must go to Paris at once--my mother is dying.” Lucía felt as if she
had received a blow on the head from some unseen hand, and stood for a
moment speechless, breathless, pulseless. When she had recovered herself
sufficiently to exclaim:
“Your mother! Good heavens! What a misfortune!” Artegui had already
turned to leave the room, without waiting to listen to the lisped offers
of service with which Gonzalvo was overwhelming him.
“Don Ignacio!” cried the young girl, as she saw him lay his hand on the
knob.
As if those vibrant tones had reawakened memory in the unhappy son, he
retraced his steps, went straight to Lucía, and, without uttering a word
took both her hands in his and pressed them in a strong and silent
clasp. Thus they remained for a few seconds, neither saying to the other
a word of farewell. Lucía tried to speak, but it seemed to her as if a
soft silken cord were tightening around her neck and slowly strangling
her. Suddenly Artegui released her hands; she drew a deep breath and
leaned against the wall, confused, scarcely conscious. When she looked
around her she saw that she was alone in the room with Gonzalvo, who was
reading, half aloud, the telegram which Artegui had left behind him on
the table.
“It was the truth, it was the truth--and the telegram is in Spanish,” he
murmured. “‘The Señora dangerously ill. She desires Señorito to come.
Engracia.’ Who may Engracia, Engracia, Engracia be? Ah, now I
know--Artegui’s nurse, the nurse to a certainty. Well, well! I don’t
know whether he will catch the express” (this word Gonzalvo pronounced
as if it were written epés). “Half-past two--it is only a little while
since the express arrived from Spain--yes, he will still have time to
catch it.”
He put back again into his pocket the beautiful skeleton watch, with its
double face, and turning his small eyes toward Lucía, he added:
“I am sorry for this for your sake, Señora; now I am your escort. The
best thing you can do is to put yourself under my care. My sister is
here with me, here with me, and I will get you a room together. It is
not fit, it is not fit that a lady should be alone in this way in a
hotel.”
Gonzalvo offered her his arm and Lucía was mechanically going to take it
when the door opened a second time and the waiter, with a theatrical
gesture, announced:
“Monsieur de Miranda.”
It was, in truth, the unlucky bridegroom, who came limping with
difficulty into the room, his right foot still almost useless; the sharp
pain of the dislocation, the result of his jump, being renewed every
time he attempted to place it upon the ground. The habitual dignity of
his bearing thus destroyed, his forty odd years revealed themselves in
unmistakable characters in every feature of his face; the
melancholy-looking black line of the mustache stood sharply defined
against the withered skin; the eyelids drooping, the temples sunken, his
hair in disorder, the ex-beau resembled one of those ruins, beautiful in
the twilight, but which in the full noonday are seen to be only
crumbling walls, nettles, brambles, and lizards. And as Lucía stood
hesitating, unable either to utter a word of welcome or to throw herself
into his arms, Gonzalvo, the constant censor of matrimony, terminated
the strange situation by bursting out laughing and advancing to give a
serio-comic embrace to the pitiable caricature of the returned husband.