Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

"Well, my dear fellow! I am glad to see that you have hatched out at last and are beginning to know the ways of the world. Ah, you rogue, how quiet you have kept it!"

But as he still remained in the study, betraying the remains of a suspicion, Raimundo, with the audacity peculiar to women and weak men in critical circumstances, said firmly enough:

"My capital and my sister's are intact; I can show you the securities this very minute."

He took out the key and was going to fetch the box. His uncle stopped him.

"No need, my boy, no need. What for?"

And thus he escaped as by a miracle from this dreadful predicament, which might so easily have ended in a catastrophe. At the same time, his triumph cost him many moments of bitter reflection, and a collapse of mind and body which made him quite ill for a time. It is impossible to break suddenly with all the traditions and ideas which constitute the back-bone of our character without the acutest pain.

At about this time a gentleman from Chili came to call on him; a naturalist himself, and, like Raimundo, devoted to the study of butterflies. He had last come from Germany, and was on his way home to America; he had read some of the young man's scientific papers, and having also heard of his fine collection, he would not pass through Madrid without visiting it. Raimundo received him with great pleasure, and some little shame; for some months he had scarcely thought of scientific subjects, and had neglected his specimens. The South American nevertheless found it extremely interesting and was full of intelligent sympathy; he told him that he was commissioned by his Government to recruit some young men of talent to fill the professors' chairs lately created at Santiago in Chili. If Alcázar would emigrate one of them was open to him.

In any other circumstances Raimundo, who had no tie of blood excepting his sister, would certainly have decided on this step. But as it was, enmeshed by the toils of love, the proposal struck him as so absurd that he could but smile with a trace of contempt, and he politely declined it as though he were a millionaire, or a man at the head of Spanish society.

Then to pay for his journey to Biarritz, he was again obliged to sell some shares in the funds. He carried five thousand francs with him, a more than ample sum for his summer in France. But at the end of a few days, led away by the example of his friends, he took to betting at the Casino, on the game of racing with dice, and in two evenings he had lost everything. Not being accustomed to these proceedings, the only thing he could think of to help himself was to return to Madrid at once, sell some more shares, and come back again. His fortune was dwindling from day to day. By the beginning of the winter he had sacrificed several thousand dollars; but this did not check his lavish expenditure. Aurelia, who from some hints of her uncle, or suspicions of her own, imagined that she knew from whom the money came, was melancholy and distressed. Her eyes, as she looked at her brother, were full of grief and pity, not unmingled with indignation.

So matters went on till the Carnival. The Duchess of Requena's health had been improved by some waters in Germany, to which her husband had taken her in the autumn. No sooner had she made her will in favour of her step-daughter, than he devoted himself to taking care of her, knowing how important her existence was to him. The great speculator's affairs meanwhile were progressing satisfactorily. He had bought the mines at Riosa, as he had proposed, money down. From that moment he had been waging covert war against the rest of the company, selling shares at lower and lower prices, to depreciate their value. This had worked entirely to his satisfaction. In a few months the price had fallen from a hundred and twenty, at which they had stood just after the sale of the property, to eighty-three. Salabert waited on from day to day to produce a panic, by throwing a large number of them into the market, and so bring the quotation down to forty. Then, by means of his agents in Madrid, Paris, and London, he meant to buy up half the shares, plus one, and so to be master of the whole concern.