At eight o'clock in the morning I heard the cheerful voice of Emilio, who came into my quarters like a hurricane, threw open the windows, and sat down on my bed.
"You can't go to-morrow, Captain!" he cried, laughing, and pulling my beard to finish waking me.
"Why?" I asked sleepily.
"Because to-morrow you are going to be god-father to a little girl more beautiful than the morning star."
"What! Cristina——?"
"Yes; Cristina was taken ill after you left us. We thought that it was to be like her afternoon indisposition; but she, who ought to know, begged us to send for the woman she had engaged for the case. I was afraid she might not succeed, and sent for the doctor; but Cristina would not consent that he should come into her room. When the woman took charge of her, the poor—Oh, what courage, what suffering, Captain! Not a groan, not a moan. I walked about dead, torn to pieces, praying God that she would scream. I don't understand suffering without a sound. I am appalled by temperaments like Cristina's, that not one complaint escapes in the worst of pains. At two o'clock in the morning my brave little woman came through her trouble, making me father of the prettiest, healthiest, cleverest little one the sun of Valencia ever shone on. I'm sure of it, although I have not yet seen it."
He got up from the bed, took several turns in the room, came back and sat down, got up again, and went through a series of evolutions that showed the delightful agitation of his spirit. I felt deeply moved too, and congratulated him with hearty words. When he stopped at last, I asked him:
"So you do me the honor of being god-father?"
"It will give me great pleasure if you will accept. To tell the truth, I thought first of Castell. You don't mind, do you? Enrique is more than a friend and brother to me. It would be the natural thing. But I will tell you privately, Cristina opposed it. Religious scruples, do you see? Enrique professes such upsetting ideas and declares them with such excessive frankness, the ladies cannot forgive him. It is all because he is not a practical man. He might hold all the notions he liked if he would keep them a little more to himself when he is among women. As for me, I laugh at his materialistic ideas. Enrique a materialist, when there is not a more generous man in the world! Because, in spite of his great talents and his wonderful powers of illustration, do you know, Enrique is a child, a heart of gold!"
As he uttered these words with an accent of conviction, he shook his black, curly head in a way that made me want to laugh and to weep at the same time.