"A party of miners, going down in the cage which serves as a counterpoise to this one."
"I told you so, Condesa," exclaimed Salabert in a triumphant tone. "If they are in spirits to sing, they cannot be so miserable as you fancy."
The lady was silent for a moment, then she said, with a melancholy smile:
"It is not a very mirthful ditty, Duke."
This was going on in the upper compartment. In the lower division, Escosura observed in a scornful tone to the chief engineer:
"Do you know that your young doctor was so rash as to give us a taste of his materialistic views?"
"Materialistic! I do not know that he is a Materialist. What he prides himself on being—and the miners worship him for it—is a Socialist."
"Worse and worse."
"To tell the truth," said Peñalver, with a sigh, "it is impossible to come up from the bottom of a mine without having caught a little of the infection."
At nine in the evening, after dining at Villalegre, the party returned to Madrid, by special train. They all set out well content with the excursion. They hoped to amaze their friends by their account of the underground banquet. The only unhappy person was Raimundo. The alternations of joy and anguish which Clementina's flirtation occasioned him had quite quenched his spirit. At last, seeing him so sad and exhausted, his mistress was merciful. She made him sit by her in the train, and without scandalising a party who were cured of all such weakness, she talked to him all the evening, and finally dropped asleep with her head on his shoulder.