They both laughed, but Leon suddenly turned melancholy.
“Change the subject,” he said; “it is a painful one.”
“Your mother-in-law has found the philosopher’s stone,” Pepa went on, “you ought to be proud of having any one in your family who is so clever in that art!... Well, I heard—servants always have the most delightful stories, and they tell each other everything—oh! the most amusing detail ... shall I tell you?”
“No, for pity’s sake.”
“Nonsense, let me tell you.”
“I can guess it: that on the very day of the great supper there was nothing to eat; that there was a commotion in the house because some purveyor or confectioner brought a bill for twenty or thirty dollars ... oh! I know it all; it is an every day dilemma.”
“But perhaps you do not know of the scandalous flirtation that the Marquesa de San Salomó carries on with Gustavo, in his father’s house even. Vera told me that they were always together, sitting in a corner, whispering and cooing with an air of mystery and devotion in the most impudent, the most audacious way!... So they say, but perhaps it is slander; so many lies get about.”
“So many!”
“And have you heard of her poet?” Pepa went on with malicious enjoyment. “Has not the marquis told you about him? This inspired being whose verses are all about white doves and lilies of peace, the Christian home, the glories of Sinai, the Virgins of the Lord, pious aspirations, the azure empyrean, the spirits of the deep and the soul of Virtue—this sublime Christian poet adores your mother-in-law as his Beatrice.” Pepa could not help laughing. “It is she who inspires him with all these divine visions and metaphysical raptures. It is a pity you should not have seen him; he is quite a character. To talk to him after reading his verses is like falling from the clouds into a mud heap. You have not only dramas in your family but farces!”
“Pepita for pity’s sake do not torture me,” said Leon rising to go. “You know that I can never get accustomed to certain things which some people do not mind at all so long as they do not go on in their own houses. They do not, to be sure, go on in mine; but still, I see them in that of a man who has a right to call me his son. It crushes me ... I feel that I cannot live here, I must leave Madrid, my mind is quite made up; I must go....”