His wife’s astonishment seemed to be caused by annoyance and disappointment. All were to be free while she was to be a slave, harnessed to the dreary round of a summer in Madrid.
“Our dear Luis,” the marquis went on, stroking his son’s cheek, “gets better every day; I am not anxious about him; nothing will do him so much good as rest. A summer in Madrid with his mother at his side—how glad I should be to stay with you, but I am most unlucky!—Several friends have begged me to share their carriage in the train to-morrow.”
He stopped, finding himself alone with Leon; his wife and the twins had left the room.
“It is really no fault of mine,” he went on as he walked up and down the pretty drawing-room, crammed with a thousand costly trifles of French exportation, tapestry, porcelain, furniture, and all the expensive magnificence which fills our houses for lack of the real works of art which are taken away from their proper place and use, to be stored in museums by an æsthetic government.—“It is no fault of mine; you can easily believe that I go very much against my will. I am truly distressed at the levity of my two sons who have deserted their father’s roof just when poor Milagros most needs their society to cheer her and when Luis is so ill—for he is very ill, it is of no use to deceive ourselves. I believe he will go on getting worse; he may get through the autumn—but the winter.—In any case the boys have behaved badly, very badly. Leopoldo is going to-night and Gustavo to-morrow. I should not have thought it of Gustavo—however, he is going, he is in love, over head and ears in love. The Marquesa de San Salomó starts to-morrow for Arcachon, Paris and le Havre; Gustavo accordingly is going northwards too and the labels of his luggage are addressed for le Havre via Arcachon and Paris—a very nice little journey. The marquesa is very pretty and elegant, and Gustavo is very attractive—whether all they say is true! who knows? I don’t believe a word of it. But there is no doubt that Gustavo’s fiery eloquence and his fearless and vigorous defence of the Church made a great sensation in the fashionable world. The ladies’ seats were filled quite early with pretty faces under the most elegant hats, and there was a constant murmur of discussion and approval. And it is certainly the fact that women are among the staunchest guardians of the time-honoured creed of our ancestors. Do you hope to pervert the national conscience, you atheists? Then you must begin by annihilating the fairer half of the human race.—The truth is that Gustavo is an admirable speaker; his fervid language moves the Chamber and delights the galleries. Then he has found a congenial subject, a subject that speaks for itself—that appeals to the feelings, to the heart, to all that is most sacred and precious in the soul and which is altogether consonant to the spirit of Castilian nobility. The Marquis de Fúcar said to me yesterday with a knowing wink: ‘That young fellow has struck into the right path’—and I replied: ‘Oh, yes! Gustavo knows where he is going—and how to get there.’ He is so full of talent that, as my friend Don Cayetano Polentinos said to me: ‘He is a perfect manual of hopes!’ Clever, good-looking, full of eager eloquence. However, I must own I should have liked to see him with more family feeling. I leave home because I absolutely need rest and health; but Gustavo.—Still, I can understand the attractiveness of such a woman as the Marquesa de San Salomó.—Yes, yes, I am coming. (This to a servant who had come in to say that breakfast was getting cold.) Are you ready for breakfast Leon? You too will be weighing anchor I suppose....”
The next day Leon went to see off his father-in-law and Gustavo, who left by the same train though in different carriages and very different society—both however with free passes due to the kindness of some member on the Company’s board.
“I could not possibly put off this journey,” Gustavo said to his brother-in-law, leading him away to the least crowded part of the station. “If anything happens at home you will telegraph to me at once.—Look, do you see that woman? I expected as much as soon as I heard that my father was going away.—Do you see her?”
“Her—who?”
“Paca, Paquira—there she goes....” And among the crowd, above which surged a mass of plumed and wreathed hats, with gaudy birds, and blue and green veils shrouding pretty faces, like clouds, Leon distinguished a young girl of pleasing appearance and elegantly dressed, disputing with the guard for two seats in a carriage.
“And there is my father with two friends who are getting in with them.—Now, I ask you—what can such folly lead to in a man who ought to remember his age and his duties, the state of his household and his own social position? That mania for remaining young is the ruin of modern society.—Well, if you do not go away be as much as you can with my mother and Luis. My mother has a soft heart and this misfortune has come upon her like a warning from Heaven—a warning that she should cease to regard this life as one long scene of amusement. Will she take the lesson to heart? I fear not. She has a kind heart but too weak a nature. I am furious when I see that swindler Leopoldo getting money out of her. But that is just like her—whatever he asks for she is ready to give him.—Ah, my father has got into another compartment; he is in the next one, with his friends. Well, so long as he saves us from any public scandal. Good-bye; write to me, or send a telegram if anything happens. Arcachon, Hotel Brisset—and then Paris, poste restante.”