The smoke of their Havanas mingled as it curled up to the ceiling, and for a minute or two there was silence in the pretty little room; nothing was to be heard but the bubbling trickle of the water in the hose with which the gardener was sprinkling the shrubs outside, and the twitter of caged birds in a window near, whose chirruping song sounded like a piping medley of musical notes trying to agree as to the best way of producing a Wagnerian symphony. In the study, on a book-stand as large as a pulpit, a huge geological atlas lay open, showing the successive ages of the globe. On the table were flowers, dissected so as to show their inmost mysteries; insects undergoing autopsy; shells sawn down the middle, revealing their secret chambers of enamel and pearl; prints, displaying eggs at the various stages of incubation; a model in papier-maché of the human eye of the size of a coconut; and in the midst of all this paraphernalia stood a microscope, the lens reflecting a sunbeam on to the marquis’ head which, being perfectly bald, offered a convenient subject for the study of craniology.
“So you are studying natural history now?” said Tellería with an air of condescending tolerance. “Well, it seems to be the science of the day—the science of materialism. Much good you are doing the human race by depriving it of its time-honoured beliefs and giving it in exchange ... what?—The precious discovery that we are first cousins to the apes of Retiro.” And he laughed with childish glee at his own idea as he cast his eye on the litter of books.
“You know,” he said suddenly, “that I am on the commission to report on the law concerning vagrants.”
“You will make a brilliant report.”
“It is a delicate matter,” added the marquis, throwing himself back in his chair so that he sat with his eyes fixed on the ceiling and his feet in the air. “It is the question of the day. I have said again and again to the president of the council: ‘so long as we have no good vagrancy law legislation is impossible.’ We must go to the root of the matter, to the foundation of things, do not you see? It is the immense number of idle and disreputable souls, the starving and thieving classes, who count on a revolution to make their harvest, who are the festering cause of the ferment in which we live. Sweep away all this low filth and I will be responsible for social good order.”
“Very true,” said Leon. “Sweep them away—a clean sweep, that is what is wanted.”
“But the worst of it is that I cannot give as much time as I could wish to the commission; I am so much occupied. And that reminds me, Leon, I had some business to discuss with you.”
He had in fact reached the point which was the object of his visit; but though he approached the matter with a degree of anxiety that made his heart beat, he contrived to conceal his agitation. The man was too weak not to suffer from such qualms, but too highly artificial to betray them.
“You are aware that I am one of the directors on the board of administration of the Bank of Agriculture. It is a grand national undertaking; our function is to raise the credit of landed property from the abyss into which it has sunk.” Such phrases of financial cant were a frequent garnish to the marquis’ conversation, and he went on to deliver himself of a variety of novel ideas: as for instance, that Spain is essentially an agricultural country; that its territorial wealth cannot be developed for want of capital; that the capital nevertheless exists—why should it not?... That all that is needed is to concentrate it, to secure it, and to redistribute it, so as to enable it to fertilise—to benefit—to fructify—and the marquis, having lost his thread, could not finish the sentence, which he was improvising instead of repeating by heart. He stopped short. The Bank of Agriculture was closely connected with a great English company, “The Spanish Phosphate Company, Limited,” which was destined to effect a complete transformation in the country; it was a magnificent scheme. “Funds, subscribers—these were the two poles of the axis on which the regeneration of Spain was to turn.” This, again, was borrowed from the company’s prospectus, and the marquis wound up his harangue by saying with apparent indifference: “Well, what do you think of it? Will you invest some of your capital in our shares.”
“I must save my capital to secure my income,” said Leon with feigned simplicity.