"Luisa? What do you know of Luisa?" stammered the younger man. The name seemed to have fallen on him like the touch of an enchanter's wand, stiffening him to stone. Like a statue he stood there, peering forward with a white face.
"My friend"—Fuentes turned to me—"be so good as to unstrap the case yonder and hand me my guitar."
He laid his foil on the table, took the guitar from me, and, having seated himself on the bench, tried the strings softly, all the while looking up with grave raillery at the two young men.
"What do I know of Luisa? Listen!" Under his voice he began a light-hearted little song, which in English might run like this, or as nearly as I can contrive—
My love, she lives in Salamanca
All up a dozen flights of stairs;
There with the sparrows night and morning
Under the roof she chirps her prayers.
They say her wisdom comes from heaven—
So near the clouds and chimneys meet—
I rather think Luisa's sparrows
Fetch it aloft there from the street!
What would you have? In la Verdura
All the day long she keeps a stall:
Students, bachelors buy her nosegays,
Given with a look and—well, that's all!
Go, silly boy, believe you first with her—
Twenty at once she'll entertain.
Why love a mistress and be curst with her?
Copy Luisa—love all Spain!
He paused, still eyeing them. "You recognise the tune, Sirs? Does she play it yet? Well, then, I made it for her."
"You? How came you to make her that tune?" The younger man had found his voice at length. "No, Sir; coquette she may be, but that she ever was friends with such a one as Andrea Galazza I will not yet believe."
"And you are right. Sirs, you have not yet told me your names: but in your generous heat you have given me your secret—that you are two lovers of Spain, and even such a pair as my friend and I have travelled some distance to seek. In return you shall have mine. I tricked you just now. I am not Don Andrea, but his brother Eugenio—or, as some call him, Fuentes."