The dragon was Juana, who was likely to appear with the waiter in her hands.
After breakfast came the happiest hour of the day for Maximina: she would go with her husband to the library, and he, settling himself comfortably in an easy-chair, would take her on his knees, fold her to him, and whisper in her ears the sweetest things she ever heard. Sometimes it happened that he would fall into a doze, and Maximina would not lift a finger for fear of waking him; and even though her position were uncomfortable, she would endure it until Miguel opened his eyes.
"There now, I must be going!" he would say, getting up. "What! so soon?" she would exclaim sadly.
Miguel would fondle her, and smile, and take leave of her at the door. It seemed as though these leave-takings would never end.
"They might see us from the opposite side," Maximina would say, tearing herself out of his arms.
"But the door is closed!"
"That makes no difference; they might see us through the ventanilla.[20]"
Sometimes, as a little joke on his wife, he would start to go without saying good by; but as soon as she heard him raise the latch, she would drop whatever she was engaged in doing, whether in the dining-room, the kitchen, or in her own room, and fly to the door. When she did not hear the latch, he would do his best to make her hear it.
Maximina spent her afternoons with the servants. Besides Juana, they had hired two others,—a cook, and another maid, who had a better idea of laundry work than the maid from Pasajes.
When Miguel came in at dusk, and rang the bell, the young woman's heart would give a leap, and she herself would run to open the door for him. Sometimes she would let the maid open it; but then she would hide behind the door or in the next room. The maid's smiling face would betray the secret to the young man, that his wife was somewhere near, and he would say, sniffing in a comical way:—