The Royalties did not remain many minutes in the supper-room. As soon as they left, the tide of guests rushed in without much ceremony. The sitting-rooms remained silent, abandoned to the servants, who with the precision of soldiers, replaced the dwindling wax lights by fresh ones, while the noise in the dining-room, of plates and glasses, and voices and laughter, was almost bewildering.
Cobo Ramirez deserted Esperancita for a while, leaving her on his rival's hands, while he found a seat for himself at a little table in a snug corner, to devour a plateful of ham and Hamburg beef. Ramoncito naturally took advantage of this reprieve to show off his own poetical frugality as compared with Cobo's prosaic gluttony, till Esperancita cut the ground from under him by saying very spitefully to her friend Pacita, who sat by her side:
"For my part I like a man to be a great eater."
"So do I," said Paz. "At any rate it shows that he has a good digestion."
"So have I," said Maldonado, crushed and vexed by the hostile tone the young girls had adopted against him. Paz only smiled scornfully.
General Patiño, tired of throwing his heavy shell at Calderón's torpid spouse without producing the smallest sign of capitulation, had raised the siege, to sit down before the Marquesa de Ujo; she had yielded at the first fire, and thrown open every gate to the enemy. At the same time, as a consummate strategist, the General had not lost sight of Mariana, hoping that some happy accident might again lay her open to his batteries. The newspapers had lately mentioned a rumour that he was to be made Minister of War. This dignity would, no doubt, give him greater influence and prestige, whenever he might choose to surprise the stronghold.
The Marquesa de Ujo was dressed à la Turque, and she played her part so well that Alcantara declared he "longed to have a shot at her himself." Her languor was so great that she could scarcely exert herself to articulate, so that the General was obliged to assist her every minute in the exhausting effort. While her far from perfect teeth nibbled a cake or two—for her digestion did not allow of her eating anything more solid—she uttered, or, to be exact, she exhaled a series of exclamations over a new French novel.
"What exquisite scenes! What a sweet book! When she says, 'Come in if you choose; you can dishonour my body but not my soul.' And the duel, when she receives the bullet that was to have killed her husband! How beautiful it is!"
Pepe Castro was prancing—forgive the word—round Lola Madariaga. She was relating with a malicious smile the incident which had just occurred when Clementina had found her sitting with Raimundo. She spoke as though she had won the youth from her friend, with a scornful and patronising air which would have been a shock to Clementina's pride if she could have heard it.
"Poor Clem! she is growing old, isn't she? But what a figure she has still. Of course it is all done by tight-lacing, and it must do her a mischief, sooner or later, but as yet—— Her face does not match her figure, above all now that she has begun to lose her complexion so dreadfully. She always had a very hard face."