Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

"Señor Duque, it is no fault of mine," said Biggs, with a strong English accent, "I must obey orders."

"These orders are instigated by an old fox in Madrid that I know of."

"Oh, Señor Duque! there is no old fox in the case," said Biggs, laughing.

And the banker could not get anything out of the Englishman, though he left him much to think of.

Pepa Frias, in great agitation, after ascertaining from various authorities that Osorio's affairs were looking badly, was talking matters over with Jimenez Arbos. Every one was of opinion that Osorio could meet his engagements; he had a large capital, and though he had lost heavily at the last few settlements, it was not supposed that he could be seriously hit. It must, however, be added, that none of these gentlemen gambled, as Osorio did, for differences in the market. With him it had become a vice, and, in spite of the warnings of his friends and colleagues, he could not control the passion which sooner or later must inevitably bring him to ruin.

Pepa was watching him closely, and with a woman's keen insight she divined a troubled sea under his cold, quiet demeanour. Arbos was soothing her in stilted and well turned phrases—for not even to his mistress could he throw off the orator—while the widow herself was meditating some means of salvation. Her plan was to give the alarm to Clementina, and extract her promise to snatch Pepa's fortune from the burning, if burning there must be, by pledging her own settlements. Trusting much to her own diplomacy, and to her friend's reckless habits, she grew somewhat calmer, and Arbos took advantage of her restored serenity to exert the exceptional gifts of persuasion which Providence had bestowed on him.

Pepa recovered so far, in fact, as to sit down to cards with Clementina, Pinedo, and Arbos. As she crossed the drawing-room, she saw in a corner her daughter and son-in-law, sitting like two devoted turtle-doves. She stopped to speak to them, and as her temper was not entirely pacified, her tone was sharp.

"Yesterday you were ready to call each other out, and to-day nothing will part you! Come, children, do not sit together all the evening. You should not be so spooney in company."

Emilio was offended by her authoritative tone, the colour mounted to his face, and he was on the point of answering his mother-in-law in the same key, but she was gone into the card-room. So there he was left muttering an oath, and saying that he had never been in the habit of taking a scolding from any one, and he was not going to begin with his mother-in-law, with other equally vehement and incoherent declarations, which made Irenita look very doleful, and would have ended in tears if he had not discovered it in time, and, giving her a loving little nip inside her arm, asked her at the same time to let him have half of the mint-drop she was sucking in her pretty mouth. And hereupon they fell to cooing again, as if they had been in the virgin forest instead of Osorio's drawing-room.

A party of five or six young girls, and among them Esperancita, were talking with a group of the younger men. Two of these were Cobo Ramirez and our intelligent friend Ramon Maldonado. It would be difficult to reduce to writing the ideas exchanged by these youthful talkers. They must have been subtle, amusing, and pointed, if we may judge by the mirth they gave rise to. At the same time the keen observer would have detected the fact that the young ladies' gestures, appealing eyes, saucy glances, and insinuating graces, even their shouts of laughter, had no direct connection with what was said.