"Will you not take some chocolate?" asked Clementina, holding out her hand.
"How can you expect a man to drink chocolate when he has just had a sonnet fired off in his face?"
"Mariscal?"
"The very man. In the dining-room—he lay in ambush."
Mariscal was a young poet in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, who wrote sonnets to the Virgin and odes to duchesses. "But I avenged myself like a Barbary Moor. I introduced him to Cotorraso who is giving him a lecture on oils. Look how the poor wretch is suffering!"
The gamblers looked round, and saw, in fact, the two men in a corner together. The Count was haranguing vehemently, and holding his victim by the lapel of his coat. The unhappy poet, with a rueful countenance, trying to give signals of distress by glances, stood like a man who is being taken to prison.
"Arbos, do you think I am sufficiently avenged?"
He turned on his heel and hastily left the room, not to weaken the effect of his sarcasm. Thus, every evening, he made his appearance at two or three houses, where his wit and cleverness were the subject of constant praise.
The servants presently came with trays of chocolate and ices. Cobo Ramirez seized a little Japanese table, carried it off into a corner, sat down to it, and prepared to stuff. Pepa Frias looked about her, and seeing General Patiño, called to him.
"Here, General, take my cards, I am tired of playing. Hand yours over to Pepe, Clementina, and let us go into the other room."