"Wait a bit, my girl, wait a bit. If Castell pays the two pesetas, I'll give it up. Until then we do not separate, no!"
"Here it is!" said Castell, taking the money out of his pocket-book and passing it across the table.
"There—go!" said Sabas, passing over the carnation.
This jest produced a shout at the table. Yet it did not please Cristina. She was furious, and called her brother names, and vowed that she would never give him another flower as long as she lived.
Meanwhile I had had time to recover from the extreme agitation that the words of Castell had caused me. We finished dining gayly, but Cristina did not again appear smiling and cordial as before.
Two hours later I took the train for Barcelona, where my presence was indispensable. I was accompanied to the station by Martí and Sabas. Martí made me promise another and a longer visit.
"After my next voyage," I told him, "I am thinking of asking the company's permission to stop at home when they change the order of time for the ships, six weeks hence. Then I will come down from Alicante and spend a week or a fortnight with you."
"We shall see if you are a man of your word," he replied, squeezing my hand affectionately until it was time for me to take the train and be off.
CHAPTER VI.
I DO not know what relation exists between salt water and love, but experience has made me realize that there exists in it some mysterious and stimulating virtue. On land I am able to control somewhat my most vehement sentiments and conquer them. Once on board I am a lost man. The most insignificant attraction takes on gigantic proportions and in a little while knocks me flat. So it happened that while in Valencia I proposed to myself to make nothing of flattering invitations, and never again in my life to return to stand before Doña Cristina, continuing in this commendable resolution until I left Barcelona, no sooner did I find myself afloat than it vanished like the mist, and seemed to me a veritable absurdity.