The child, touched by the kindness, began to sob and left the room.
When she entered the drawing-room in the evening like that, the count could not repress a gesture of anger, and cast an interrogative glance at Amalia, who replied to the gesture and look with a provoking smile. And in a loud voice she said that the child's hair had been cut by her orders, for she had noticed that she was beginning to be vain. It is so! and people flatter her so much that she has become unmanageable.
The count, enraged, immediately took the opportunity of repairing to Fernanda's side, where he renewed the conversation of the previous evening. The two were loquacious and affectionate. Fernanda related her life in Paris with no lack of details; and Luis was particularly expansive, not hiding the cheerfulness of his heart, and talking with animation in spite of Amalia's angry glance fixed upon him. During a pause, Fernanda raised her smiling eyes to her ex-fiancé and asked him, but not without a slight blush:
"Don't you know why the child's hair has been cut?"
The count looked at her without replying.
"Because I praised it yesterday, and allowed myself to kiss it."
It was the first time that Fernanda took his secret for granted. He felt a great shock; his face grew red, and so did hers. For some time neither of them could speak.
During the following days the count often walked down the Calle de Altavilla, and he spent a great deal of time in the Café de Marañón. Lancian society was moved to its very foundation at such an important turn of events, and henceforth he was an object of interest to three hundred pairs of eyes. He gave up going every day to the Quiñones' house, and went occasionally to the de Merés' little party, as it continued to be called in Lancia, although only one of the old ladies was now left in this world. Carmelita had died at least three years ago. Only Nuncia the youngest was left, and she was quite paralytic. From the armchair to the bed, and from the bed to the armchair was all that she could manage with great difficulty. She was also deprived of moral support, as in her sister she lost her protector from impulse. Since she was buried there was no one to keep her in order. With the sudden promotion to the category of persons sui juris, the poor "child" was a prey to great distress, everything worried her, everything was an insuperable difficulty. Those sharp scoldings had been less overwhelming to her, for if they had caused tears, they had been salutary in checking her juvenile ebullitions, and so prevented the fatal consequences attending her inexperience. Her guests were a few youths, and several young men of our acquaintance, with a sufficient number of graceful, pretty damsels who came to the house on the look out for a husband. For the "child," in this, and in every respect, kept up religiously the traditions bequeathed by her sister. She was the firm protector of all the courtships that arose in Lancia, however ill-advised they might be. The little house of the Calle del Carpio continued to be the forge, where the conjugal happiness of the worthy neighbours of Lancia was forged. The most constant visitor was Paco Gomez, because the house of the Quiñones was closed to him in consequence of one of his remarks. A certain stranger meeting him in Altavilla with a few others asked him how the Grandee came to be paralysed.
"He is not really paralysed," returned Paco, for he is not disabled at all, only his legs can't put up with all the heraldry stuff that he has got in his head, and so they double up rather than take a step.
This came to Quiñones' ears through a traitor, and he gave orders he was henceforth not to be received. He was the soul and the delight of the "child's" party, and the incessant way he made fun of Nuncita kept all the guests in a fit of laughter.