“Come along, this minute!” said he, taking it up in his arms.
At this instant they heard a noise of wheels and the tramp of one of those wonderful Spanish horses which seem to us as indefatigable as the bronze steed of an equestrian statue that trots perpetually without ever descending from its pedestal.
“Ah! there they are!” cried Leopoldo going to the window. “Higadillos on horseback, the Count in his break. I told them to come round this way to pick me up—I am coming, I am coming!”
From where he sat Leon could see the carriage drawn up by the gate, and the bull-fighter on horseback; a huge young fellow with his legs swathed and a voluminous scarf—a supple figure, not wanting in sculpturesque beauty, crowned with a head of vulgar Spanish type, of the hue of tobacco, under a wide sombrero. His horse snorted and pawed, and the count had his hands full with those in the break, a fiery pair of a cross-breed between the Bearnais and Andalusian. Polito was soon seated in the carriage with Lady Bull, and the jolly party set out down the street, Higadillos leading the way, and cheered by the jingle of the horses’ bells. Leon looked after them with some curiosity; it was a small but significant fragment of contemporary Spanish history.
CHAPTER XII.
GUSTAVO.
He looked at him and a friendly smile lighted up his melancholy face in token of welcome; then they both gazed out—for they were sitting by the window, at the fresh and scented verdure of the garden, over which the showers from the garden hose swept like a light broom of water, laying the dust, startling the birds, frightening the butterflies, drowning the insects and caressing the plants. Skilfully directed by the gardener, it penetrated the glistening density of the euonymus shrubs, dashing off the surface of the leaves in jets of spray sparkling with miniature rainbows. The garden was a new one, one of those parterres that are turned out complete by the nurseryman as the furniture of a house is turned out by the upholsterer; methodically planted with a tiny wood, lawns, orchards, rockeries bordered with ivy, and baskets full of sweet-william and convolvulus. Conifers grew in appropriate spots, each surrounded by a formal bed in which rows of petunias crept as if on their knees, before some lordly araucaria, or the insolent loftiness of a dragon-tree all spikes and blades. It all looked as if it had just been taken out of a band-box and was the work of human industry rather than of nature; still, it was very pretty, and fresh, and gay, and nothing could be fitter to divide the road which belonged to all, from the house which belonged to one only.
After contemplating the scene for some minutes they sat down to drink their coffee.
“Before I forget it,” said Gustavo, “I want to mention my disapproval of a virtue in you, which, when not judiciously exercised, must lead to mischief: I mean your liberality, which must in the end injure you, as well as my brother who takes advantage of it. I know that you have at times given Polito money, and it annoys me, for he is a ne’er-do-weel of the very worst type. Now and here, in the strictest confidence, I may tell you exactly what I feel, and pass impartial judgment on the various members of my family. If their conduct puts me to shame it is better to blush openly than to feel it seething in my blood.”