"That is nothing special. A man with eight million pesetas is an admirable being. But the admiration, in this case, will not bring any practical result. All the world knows that Castell keeps the mother of his children, and no young lady of good family thinks of him. With you the case is different; it would be possible for it to be quickly carried to a satisfactory solution; and my opinion is that you ought to leave your steamboat and try at once for this elegant craft. Isabelita is sensible, modest, well-educated, diligent; she is accustomed to the strict economy of a house where they turn a dollar over a hundred times before parting with it; an only child, and heiress of all her father's money. And my Uncle Retamoso owns more than people imagine. Who ever can tell exactly how much money a Galician has? Probably while he lives you would not have a right of five centimes; but what does that matter to you? In the first years of marriage you can keep yourself well enough on your capital, and when necessities grow greater, and certain additional things become necessary, you can make a raise on your prospects as his son-in-law, enough to carry you over until a certain joyful event——"
Other wise reflections poured like busy and knowing bees from the mouth of that extraordinary man. In my life seemed gathered together all the loose ends of existence, all its aims fulfilled, and the quintessence of human relations extracted.
While my future was thus being discussed, although I found myself embarrassed by the new perspective offered to my view, I had, none the less, enough largeness of mind to admire the logic of his discourse, his surprising wealth of figures, richness of diction, turns of expression, subtle and logical distinctions, and the perfect links of his chain of reasoning. The breathing world, I believe, held no secrets from this man, and the mechanism of his reasoning worked with the exactness of a chronometer.
When we reached the cottage and were seated to partake of the refreshment that had been prepared for us, Emilio, who was near me, asked me in an undertone:
"Then it is decided that you are going to leave us to-morrow?"
"There is no help for it. The boat is due any moment now."
"What a pity!" he exclaimed in a melancholy tone; and placing one hand affectionately on my shoulder he added: "Do you know, you rascal, that we are getting used to you!"
I was moved by his words, and more yet by the cloud of sadness that darkened his cheerful, sympathetic face. I kept silence. He did the same. Throwing himself back in his chair, he remained unlike himself, thoughtful and melancholy. At last he turned to me and said, almost in my ear:
"If you would take my advice you would give up your sea-faring life, which, say what you will, is a little risky, and marry and settle down. Why be always alone? Do you never think of old age, and how sad it would be to pass the last years of your life in the power of self-seekers, without children to make bright your home, without a wife who of herself brings order and comfort?"
"But I am an old fellow already," I answered smiling, but sad in the depths of my soul, "I am thirty-six years old."