Sometimes he replied between jest and earnest,—
"Perhaps you are anxious for me to go away, Martita?"
"Oh, no," would be the young girl's reply, with an inflection of voice equal to a poem.
But Ricardo did not have the power of reading it. These love-wrecked men, these men wounded by disenchantment, cannot read other poems than their own.
Marta, after the death of her mother, in whose illness Ricardo had so much aided and consoled her, once more treated him with the same confidence and affection as of old. For some time she had been rather cool toward him. Don Mariano's younger daughter had passed through a terrible crisis, and no one in the house had a suspicion of it. While it lasted she was rather more brusque in her behavior, more restless, more serious and reserved; but at last her calm spirit and her healthy and well-balanced nature came out victorious. Doña Gertrudis's death, which was a more serious and genuine calamity than anything else, had no small effect in calming the disturbances and commotions of her heart. She was once more the same Marta, tranquil, serene, and affectionate as before, always anxious to free obstacles from the path of others, though her own were blocked by an unsurmountable wall. Fortunate are they who in life meet with these blessed beings who found their own happiness in that of others, and who offer the flowers and content themselves with the thorns.
Ricardo spent long hours at the Elorzas'. Whole afternoons, especially, he devoted to Don Mariano and his daughter, going to walk with them when the weather was fair, and staying in the house when it rained. Sometimes, too, he came in the morning, and then Don Mariano would invite him to stay to dinner. While Ricardo refused and the caballero insisted, Marta did not open her lips, but her anxiety was betrayed in her face, and her eager desire to keep him shone in her supplicating eyes. When, finally, he accepted, the girl's joy was evident, and her solicitude was evident in the way that she took charge of everything, going to and from the kitchen any number of times, preparing the dishes which she knew were most to the young marquis's taste, and keeping the servants alert; the beefsteak à la inglesa (for Ricardo had learned in Madrid to eat it rather rare), the cold fish, the boiled rice, the slice of lemon (Ricardo put lemon on almost all his food), the English mustard, the olives, and other things. But where Marta used her five senses was with the coffee. Ricardo was a perfect Arab, a Sybarite in regard to coffee. Thus it was that the girl bestowed a more lively and vigilant care upon the preparation of this liquid than a chemist on the analysis of some precious metal. While she came and went, making all the preparations, the young fellow did not cease to rally her in the same affectionate tone as of old; and this, too, though Marta, if still a little short for her age, was now a real woman, and not among the worst favored, either, as we have already had occasion to remark. She had grown slightly, nevertheless.
"Come, caponcita,[73] when did you stop growing?" said Ricardo, detaining her by one of her braids of hair, as she was passing in front of him.
The girl smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and continued on her way.
From the day on which he had been vexed with her, Martita had never asked him about the transfer, but whenever he entered the house, all gave him a keen, anxious look, as though trying to read some tidings in his face. As it did not come, the girl recovered her tranquillity and resumed her work, which she rarely failed to have in her hands. Ricardo likewise said nothing about going away; either he did not remember his petition, or affected not to remember it, or wished not to remember it. Perhaps it was a little of all. The Marquis de Peñalta had passed from disconsolateness to melancholy, and from this he was gradually letting himself drift on toward a happier frame of mind. The house where Marta sewed began to inspire jocund ideas of sweet ease and happiness.
One morning, Ricardo, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, as though the tidings did not tear any one's heart, as though it were some mere trifle of little consequence at issue, came into the Elorzas', and said,—