"To reward you for this good deed I am going to offer you my arm to take
you back to the parlor."
The girl took it without saying a word. After the kiss she had grown
serious.
When they went in, everybody was there before them. Maximina, who was
sitting on a sofa talking with Saavedra, looked at them with a mixture
of surprise and desolation which would have touched Miguel if he had
taken time to think about it.
A girl was seated at the piano and playing the first strains of a waltz.
Uncle Manolo came very politely to invite Maximina, and she allowed
herself to be taken out for the dance. Then Miguel, after a moment of
hesitation (caused either by remorse or because he knew how jealous his
wife was of Filomena), finally asked the girl to waltz.
"You dance very well, niece," said Uncle Manolo, stopping a moment to
rest. "Who taught you?"
"Miguel."
"I am not surprised then; Miguelito has always been a famous dancer."
Maximina had present proof of it, and to her sorrow, for her husband at
that moment floated by them, scarcely touching the floor, and holding in
his arms his light burden. The young wife did not for a moment lose them
from sight. The next time that they crossed in front of her, they were
promenading, and the girl had his arm. Miguel looked at his wife, and
she replied with a forced smile.
"How does my wife dance, uncle?"
"Admirably! She excels Lola Montez."
"So I see. She has turned you into a watering-pot!"
In fact, great drops of sweat ran down the worthy _caballero's_ brow,
and he tried to arrest them to prevent them inundating his
side-whiskers.
Maximina soon grew weary, and expressed her desire to sit down. As soon
as she had taken her place, Saavedra came and sat by her side; and Uncle
Manolo went off to invite some other young lady.
Ever since the beginning of the party the Andalusian gentleman's eyes
had persistently followed Maximina, and by a slight trembling and
closing of the eyelids had expressed perfect approval of her. Don
Alfonso was a most intelligent connoisseur of the female sex; he never
failed to be fascinated either by brilliancy, by far-fetched
originality, or by adornments; he appreciated in women genuine beauty
and grace, winsome innocence and freshness; like every one who for long
years has cultivated any art _con amore_, he had come to hate all things
that savored of affectation, and to worship only simplicity; the
conversation of coquettes amused him, but did not conquer him.
Thus it was that Maximina had always been extremely pleasing to him, and
he had shown it more than once at his aunt's house. He said of her that
her modesty and innocence did not belong to this day, but to the golden
age; one time when he addressed a guarded bit of flattery to her, in the
presence of _la brigadiera_ and Julia, the child grew so crimson that
Don Alfonso resolved not to do so again, for fear it should be suspected
that he was making love to her.
This evening she struck his fancy more than ever. As Maximina did not
usually care much for the adornment of her person, the elegance which
she now displayed made her look truly brilliant. The Andalusian
_caballero_ with the boundless audacity characteristic of him, made up
his mind to try a little gallantry, without any meaning in it, of
course.
He was too skilful not to know that in this case he must lay aside his
usual tactics as useless and dangerous. Nothing about flowers and
flattery; still less, significant looks. A fluent talk about the ball,
about the preparations which the young wife had been obliged to make;
questions, and more questions, always being careful to repeat her name
many times, since Don Alfonso had learned by experience that every woman
enjoys this repetition.
Maximina replied amiably, but in few words; her face showed a peculiar
absent-minded expression which vexed the Andalusian, and disconcerted
him a little. Instead of holding himself firmly in the attitude which he
had proposed he began to allow himself to yield, and soon found himself
giving signs of the interest which she inspired in him.
Meanwhile, Miguel, after stopping and talking with two or three ladies
for a little while, returned and sat down by Filomena. She received him
with a look that was half severe and half quizzical.
"Why have you come here?... Get you gone!"
"So as to count the patches that you have on your left cheek: I have
made out that there are seven on the right cheek, distributed in
conformity with the precepts of art."
"Ah! have you come to insult me?"
"In what chronicle have you read that a Rivera ever insulted a Losilla?"
"Never till this moment; but in the centuries to come it will be known
that a Rivera had the discourtesy to tell a Losilla that she wore
patches."
"As Heaven is my witness, how that chronicler who reported such thing
would lie! El Rivera has said it and stands ready to support his
statement in the lists that La Losilla has lovely patches on her face,
and that they are of such and such a kind, and applied in such skilful
sort that the most ingenious artificer could not have placed them with
more neatness."
"Let us drop fables; the main thing now is that I do not wish you to
approach me under this appearance of a _blase_ ladykiller! Do you hear?
The people will be thinking that you are making love to me."
"Very well; I will not make love to you: what do you want me to do,
then?"
Filomena cast another look of feigned anger at him.
"How graceful! Do you know, Senor de Rivera, that in spite of your
audacity, I imagine that you are a person who has not yet got all your
wisdom teeth?"
Miguel smiled without replying.
Maximina, who was sitting directly opposite, kept directing timid
glances toward them.
Meanwhile, Julia, who had very quickly noticed the persistent attention
which her sister-in-law was receiving from Saavedra, and the eagerness
that he showed in talking with her, began to grow nervous and irritable,
so that her annoyance showed in her face. She endeavored vainly, by a
rather inopportune gesture, to bring him back to her side. Finding
herself defeated and humiliated, blind with jealousy and anxious to have
revenge on Saavedra, she began to flirt with Utrilla. O fortunate cadet!
and who could have predicted that in one instant thou wouldst be enabled
to pass from those unendurable torments to the summit of all bliss and
felicity? For as soon as Julita and he drew near each other, it was as
though the poles of positive and negative electricity were brought into
contact: the flash of love was visible to everybody.
Julita smiled, blushed, prattled, gave him her fan and her gloves, and
the flowers from her bosom, and devoured him with her eyes; but this did
not prevent her from now and then looking surreptitiously at her cousin
and sister-in-law and casting angry glances at them.
Maximina was endeavoring with all the power of her soul to divine what
her husband was saying to Filomena: the affected gravity with which they
both spoke did not help to calm her; she knew from experience that
Miguel was apt to put on a serious face when he was going to say to that
young lady any piece of impudence that came into his mind.
"Don't you have any longing for Pasajes?" Saavedra was asking.
"A little, yes, sir; but here I am very happy."
"How long is it since you were married?"
"It will be nine months on the fourth."
Don Alfonso said nothing for several moments and seemed to be thinking;
then he said sadly:--
"How many times I have passed by Pasajes and seen those cottages
stretching along the shore of the bay, without ever having thought of
stopping there!"
"You have not lost much; everybody says it is a very ugly village;
except the church, which is rather fine, Don Joaquin's house, Arrequi's,
and a few in the Ancho, there is nothing much to see."
"Now, of course, it can't amount to anything ... but before...."
Maximina looked at him in surprise.
"It was formerly not as good as now; the best houses were built about
five or six years ago."
"Before, it was worth infinitely more, because you were there."
"Mercy! what difference did it make whether I were there or not?"
exclaimed Maximina, innocently.
"Because here or there, or wherever you happened to be," replied the
_caballero_, piqued by the young matron's ingenuous indifference, so
absolutely free from coquetry, "you would always be something so
precious as to attract every one's attention. And what makes you more
precious still, and more worthy of admiration, is that you have not the
remotest idea of your value: you are a beautiful, fresh, fragrant,
aromatic flower, which is absolutely unconscious of itself...."
Maximina had not heard Don Alfonso's last words, perceiving that her
husband had just given Filomena an intense look--we cannot tell what she
saw in it--that congealed her with terror: she grew as pale as wax, and
suddenly conceiving an idea that she thought might be her salvation, she
got up without replying to Saavedra, and going straight to Filomena, she
said in a hoarse voice, trying to smile:--
"Filomena, do you want to see that edging that I was speaking about
yesterday?"
Miguel and Filomena looked up in amazement. Miguel was more ashamed than
surprised.
"With great pleasure, dear," said the young woman.
Maximina started to go toward the door. Filomena paused a moment to give
a retort to Rivera's last jest.
"Are you coming or not?" asked the young wife, halting in the middle of
the parlor, and giving her a look barbed with hatred.
Miguel had never seen in his wife's eyes such an expression, nor
imagined that her voice could have such a ring.
"Yes, yes; I am coming, Maximina!" said the young woman, hastening to
rise.
And at the same time, making a little face at Miguel, she said in a low
voice:--
"Do you see? Your wife is already jealous!"
Miguel watched them go out, not without a feeling of vexation.
Saavedra, seeing his partner get up so unexpectedly, and thus casting
such a slur on his reputation as a ladykiller, frowned darkly and bit
his lips in vexation. Julia, who in spite of her apparent absorption in
conversation with Utrilla, had not lost the slightest detail of this
scene, burst into a harsh laugh. Saavedra gave her an angry and
malignant look, the meaning of which she was very far from suspecting at
that time.
The party was brought to an end by Senor de Ramirez taking out his watch
and announcing in a loud voice that it was half-past two in the morning.
Various mammas arose as though moved by springs; the girls reluctantly
followed their example; a great group was formed in the centre of the
parlor; numberless farewells were heard, a clatter of kisses, and
ripples of feminine laughter.
The young couple took their place at the stairway door, and bade good
night to their guests, at the same time adding their assistance to that
of the servants in the putting on of wraps. They were overwhelmed with
thanks and congratulations. Then everything relapsed into silence.
Miguel and his wife returned to the parlor. Maximina was extremely pale,
as her husband could see out of the corner of his eye; he also noticed
that she flung herself down upon a sofa.
He, pretending to be absent-minded, put out the candles that were
burning in the candelabra on the mantel-piece, and set some of the
furniture in place. On returning from the other room one time, he saw
his wife with her face buried in a pillow and sobbing. He went to her
and said with affected surprise:--
"Crying?"
The poor child did not reply.
"What are you crying for?" he added, with cruel coldness.
Still Maximina made no answer.
Miguel waited an instant, still standing; then he went and sat down at
the other end of the sofa.
The lights in the chandeliers burned silently; nothing was heard but the
noises made by the servants in the dining-room and kitchen; the
atmosphere of the parlor was filled with the penetrating odor compounded
of all the perfumes which the ladies had brought with them. Brigadier
Rivera's son, bending forward with his elbows resting on his knees, was
playing with his glove.
At the end of a long silence Maximina exclaimed in the midst of her
sobs:--
"_Madre mia!_ how unhappy I am to-day!"
Miguel's face was violently contracted into an expression of anger;
after a while, trying to soften his voice, but still letting it sound
very harsh, he said:--
"I had not the slightest idea of such a thing. I did not think that you
were so badly married!"
"No, Miguel, no," she hastened to say; "you are very good to me, but
this evening you have greatly tortured me ... perhaps without being
aware of it."
Miguel gave an ironical laugh.
"I am not the one who tortures you ... it is your own self. You insist
on seeing visions, you lose your wits, and when it is least to be
expected, _zas!_ you are committing some solecism!... What you just did,
getting up in a state of anger and calling Filomena, ... and the
severity with which you spoke to her, might have compromised us in
everybody's eyes.... Fortunately she is a talented girl who knew how to
dissemble...."
"Yes, yes; dissemble because it suited her convenience. Indeed, I
believe that she dissembles!"
"Come now, don't talk nonsense, Maximina."
"I am telling the truth, and everybody saw it.... This woman either
loves you or wants to torment me. This whole evening long she has not
ceased to look sneeringly at me...."
"Do you realize how ridiculous you are with your jealousy? Why should
Filomena look at you in such a way? You know her character too well,
that she is always joking, and that this saucy expression is habitual to
her eyes."
"That is right; take her part, take her part!" exclaimed the young wife,
in a tone of deep pain. "She is the good saint, the talented woman! I am
the fool, the absurd, the ridiculous!"
Miguel jumped up, gave his wife an angry look, and shrugging his
shoulders, exclaimed:--
"What stupidity!"
And he slowly walked toward his study. When Maximina heard her husband's
steps, she quickly raised her head and cried in supreme anguish, her
eyes swimming With tears:--
"Miguel! Miguel!"