The marquesa did not refuse. When she had swallowed the wine she said:
“We shall see if my tiger of a son-in-law will allow me to see my daughter this evening.”
Fúcar, anxious to avoid such a critical subject, spoke of a report he had heard that Polito was about to marry a rich Cuban heiress, whose family had lately settled in the capital with all the ostentation and éclat of an enormous fortune. The marquesa acknowledged the report, and Leopoldo indirectly confirmed it with a great deal of the false modesty that cloaks vanity. The rumours were true as to the young man’s pretensions and daily pursuit of the young lady on horseback or on foot; but, in spite of these attentions, the engagement was purely mythical, with nothing real about it but the marquesa’s vehement ambition of seeing her son possessed of a handsome and unencumbered fortune. The young lady’s family, named Villa-Bojío, though they were good friends of his mother’s were averse to Leopoldo as a suitor; still, their opposition was not very vehement, and Milagros laboured in silence, with all the diplomacy and finesse of which she was mistress, to turn this golden dream into at least a silver reality.
Presently, the subject being exhausted, she rose from table, and a servant offered the gentlemen the finest cigars the world produces. This article—to speak commercially—was the very choicest of all the good things in the millionaire’s house. His correspondents at the Havana sent, for his private use, the pick of their best, in return for the magic arts he employed to coax the government into making the rest of the nation consume the very worst. Matches were struck and the smokers smacked their lips.
“Polito,” said Fúcar, “if you wish to ride tell Salvador to saddle Selika for you.”
The smart rider of other people’s horses needed no second bidding, but went down to the stables at once. Don Pedro sighed and signed to the poorer marquises—one noble by birth and one by his wits—who, following the millionaire marquis, seemed to offer him a sort of idolatrous worship, watching his glance, and burning the incense of his own tobacco in his honour. When they were alone Don Pedro confided to them in a low voice and with a melancholy face an idea—a piece of news—a fact. And thus, pouring the woes of his anxious soul into the ears of his friends, the worthy magnate found himself relieved; he breathed more easily, and could even throw off a little joke and laugh with that fat chuckle which we first heard at Iturburua.
“What a world we live in! What vicissitudes, what unexpected reverses!—Then there is that foolish tendency in human nature to exaggerate misfortunes and regard them as irreparable....”
Onésimo, for his part, was completely stunned by the information his noble friend had communicated. He began to think that Don Pedro, utterly absorbed in his complicated speculations and the metaphysics of loans, had failed to understand the bearing of this more vulgar dilemma. Telleria, on the contrary had listened to Fúcar’s melancholy tale with a sense of sudden joy, and had an idea of his own on the subject—happy idea. This he fondly turned over in his mind as he sat gazing at the painted walls of the dining-room, decorated with a perfect deluge of dead game and fish—partridges, hares, deer and lobsters, and a corresponding deluge of fruit, vegetables, gourds and butterflies. The carved oak panelling also displayed hunting-trophies and emblems—pouting masks blowing horns, dogs, birds hanging by the heads or heels; in short so many representations of the animal and vegetable kingdom that it might have been the palace of indigestion.