“Oh, haven't I?” exclaimed Dick; which, of course made matters worse; and to mend them, he went on blundering. "What do you know about the symptoms?"
“Girls are born knowing things it takes men years to learn,” said Pilar.
It did not allay my anxiety that she should have noticed what I had noticed. But I clung to the Cherub's assurance, hoping, [pg 203]when we had set out on our explorations, to meet her, to see her face light up with the radiance I knew.
But there were no strangers save ourselves, and a few wandering Americans under the palms and orange trees of the paseo dedicated to the memory of El Gran Capitán.
We wandered—Pilar keeping at my side, and leaving Dick to her father—from gate to gate outside the Mosque-Cathedral which once made Cordoba the Mecca of Europe; gazing up at the tremendous mass of honey-coloured masonry rising like a vast fortress from its buttresses of stone; lingering under the bell-tower of the Puerta del Perdon because Pilar “felt as if something would happen there.” But nothing did happen; and we went to face the blighting of renewed hopes in the Court of Oranges, whose melancholy charm and sensuous perfume was sad as the song of a nightingale when summer is dying.
She was not there; nor could we find her in the marble forest of the pillared cathedral, though, while Dick and Pilar made up their differences over the jewelled mosaics, I searched for her.
“I tell you, Ramón, there's some satisfaction in feeling that you're looking at the best things the world's got to show,” said Dick, almost in my ear, “and there are lots of them in your country, especially in Cordoba, though I suppose the Moors would weep to see it now. But you don't seem to be enjoying them, in spite of risking such a lot to come where they are.”
I didn't remind him that the risk I ran was for the one best thing in all the world, which was only temporarily in my country, and that my depression came because it was not at the moment visible. But Pilar did not need reminding, and in the way of sweet women, tried to “keep my mind occupied” by talking history and legend, confusing them deliciously, and defending her stories of beautiful Egilona and fair Florinda by saying that, anyhow, nobody cared whether they were true or not. Besides, what was history, since dull people were continually discovering that none of the best bits had ever happened?
“I choose to believe in Florinda,” she cried, “and all the other [pg 204]beautiful women who influenced kings, and made wars, and upset countries. Without them and their love-stories, history would be like faded tapestry without gold threads.”
So Dick ceased to argue, and in silence we left the gem-like perfection of the third Mihrab, to wander once more through the wilderness of gleaming columns that were now like over-arching trees, now like falling fountains.