Will you not take a guitar, Señorita, and help me with the old song?
So near the clouds and chimneys meet—
I rather think Luisa's sparrows
Fetch it aloft there from the street!"
Above all things women suspect and fear irony: it is not one of their weapons. Luisa glanced at Fuentes doubtfully, I could see, and with some pain in her doubt. But it was the old song, after all, and he was singing it de bon cœur. She caught up a guitar and chimed in with the second verse, taking up the soprano's part, while he at once obeyed and dropped from treble to alto—
Which will you have? In la Verdura
Pretty Luisa keeps a stall:
Hands you a rose for your peseta,
Nothing to pay but a thorn—that's all!
King of her love, with no Prime Minister,
Lord of an attic blithe I'd reign.
But ay de mil! from here to Finisterre
Pretty Luisa loves all Spain.
His eyes, as he sang, were fastened on young Sebastian Paz, and she, noting them, played the verse to its ringing close, turned abruptly, and laid the guitar on the bed between the flower-baskets.
SHE CAUGHT UP A GUITAR AND CHIMED IN.
"But I think it is business brings you here, Don Eugenio."