The friends did their best to calm him. In truth neither of them was so shocked; for, after all, the conduct of the duke had been so villainous that it deserved a villainous chastisement.
Peña during the drive even cut jokes on the splendid trouncing administered to the grandee.
"There is no doubt, my boy, that grandees of strength can do more than grandees of rank," he said in his bell-like voice, enunciating every letter.
Gonzalo, like a great child that he was, passed from crying to laughing, and after the first smile he gave long and loud guffaws at his friends' jokes.
But the sight of his father-in-law's house plunged him again into depression. He had satisfied his righteous anger, but there remained a deep wound, of the anguish of which he had not yet been conscious, as long as it had been stifled by the excitement of the rage which had consumed him during those two days. Oh! those grotesque little towers and minarets, witnesses of his honeymoon; they made him so melancholy that it seemed as if some cruel hand were clutching at his heart within his breast. His friends, divining his wish to be alone, went on to Sarrio. Pablito was waiting for him at the house gate, and embraced him effusively and enthusiastically.
"Have you killed him?" he asked in a low voice.
"I don't know—I think so," returned the young man in a still lower tone. "And your father?"
"My father—he was here an instant ago—as soon as he saw you get out of the carriage safe and sound he got into the landau, which was waiting, ready, and went off to Sarrio."
Gonzalo guessed the purport of Don Rosendo's journey, and his gloominess increased.
The two brothers-in-law then proceeded in silence to the house, and straight up to Gonzalo's room.