"Let the army be kept up, but let Don Cristobal sit down," called out somebody.
The Pensioner held his position, cast a look of sad reproach to the place whence the voice had come, raised his pocket handkerchief to his eyes to dry his tears, calmly drank the wine that remained in his glass, and gravely took his seat amid the applause and laughter of the company.
Fernanda did not open her lips during the dinner. All the efforts of Garnet, who, through the kindness of Emilita had been placed near to his much-desired lady love, were without effect. Neither by talking of saffron and describing how tobacco is gathered, making exact calculations on each load of sugar, and what would be the profit if duty were lowered, nor going over the hundred and one interesting details of the importation of salted meats from the Argentine Republic and the codfish from Newfoundland, could Romeo extract more than dry monosyllables from his Juliet. All she did was to hand him her glass from time to time, and say in an imperious tone: "Some more wine."
The Indian quickly complied with the request, and the young lady emptied the glass at one gulp, put it on the table, then cast her contemptuous eyes over the guests, and fixed them persistently upon Amalia. By degrees those eyes became heavier, the eyelids drooped, they became inflamed and turned from one side to the other with more difficulty.
Don Santos, who was astonished at this manner of drinking, ventured to say:
"Fernanda, you drink like a fish. Stupid! I am afraid I have offended you."
"Give me wine," returned Fernanda, giving him such a strange look that it quite upset him.
All the toasts having been now given, drunk, and responded to, the cheerful company again dispersed. The Pensioner and the officers averse to love-making were the only ones who remained at table. They entered into discussions on the best way of increasing, without much affecting the Treasury, captains' pay by eight dollars, lieutenants' by five, and ensigns' by three a month. Without this reform, the interested parties explicitly stated that there would very soon be a complete dissolution of the army, and it would cease to be the pivot of the honour of the country, and we should never rise to the dignity of other nations, nor have prosperity, power and honour in our lives.
Jaime Moro went in search of Fray Diego and Don Juan Estrada-Rosa and dragged them to the tresillo table. Don Juan had lost and so was reluctant, but the plausible fellow managed to convince him that the reason he had not won in the morning was because he, Moro, never lost at that time, but his luck always turned in the afternoon, so he had a good chance of winning now.
Seated at the end of the table was Manin, who, without interfering with the officers' conversation, employed himself in lazily cutting slices of bread with his clasp-knife, and putting large pieces in his mouth, which he washed down with long draughts of Burgundy left in the bottles. He did not approve of the dinner that Marañón, the master of the café of Altavilla, had supplied them. After stuffing like a savage, he said that all the dishes were just as if they came from the perfumers, and that where there was plenty of beans with black pudding, sausage and marrow bones, no macaroni was wanted. It must be observed that to Manin every dish he did not know was macaroni, which was a source of much amusement to the Grandee.