How absurd an excuse for addressing her! He himself was conscious of it, and blushed as he spoke. Pepe flashed an indignant glance at him, but either he did not see it, or he pretended not to see it. The girl frowned, and replied, shortly, that she did not exactly recollect. This would have been enough for most people, but Ramon would not take an answer; on the contrary, he tried to prolong the conversation with vacuous or irrelevant remarks, and even tried to wedge a chair in between them and sit down; but Castro hindered him by covertly giving him a fiercely expressive stamp on the toes, which brought him to his senses. He continued his melancholy walk till, presently, he went back to his seat by the two elder ladies. He was soon engaged in an animated discussion with Calderón as to whether the paving of the streets should be done by contract or managed by a commission. He would have been only too glad to agree with his host; it was his interest to do so, since his happiness or misery lay in his hands, but the obstinate and fractious temper which Nature had bestowed on him led him to continue the argument, though he saw that Calderón was heated, and within an ace of being angry. Fortunately for him, before this point was reached, a servant entered the room.
"What is it, Remigio?" asked the banker.
"A man, Señor—a friend of Pardo's—Señor Mudela's coachman—has come to say that Señorito Leandro is not very well."
"Bless me! What has happened to the boy? He is not accustomed to such dissipation. He has spent all his life at school or tied to his mother's apron-string. He must be taken away from this life of excitement.—And what is the matter with him?"
Leandro was Don Julian's nephew, the son of a sister who lived in La Mancha. He had come to pay a visit to Madrid, and was leading a very jolly life in the society of other youths of his own age. He had begged his uncle to lend him his carriage for an excursion into the country. Don Julian, anxious not to offend his sister, to whom it was his interest to be civil, had granted the favour, though sorely against the grain.
"The sun and the dinner have upset him a little."
"Pooh! an attack of indigestion. He will get over that!"
"I think you ought to go to see him, Julian," said Mariana.
"If it were necessary, of course I should go; but, so far, I see no necessity. I say, Remigio, is he too ill to come here? Is he in bed?"
"Well, Señor," said the man, turning his cap in his hands, and looking down, as conscious that his news was serious, "the fact of the matter is this—one of the mares, Primitiva, is knocked up."