“You did not understand,” said Alvar; “and perhaps I did not know.”
He did not show any emotion, but his face smoothed out into an expression of satisfaction and well-being, and he smiled with a little air of triumph at Cherry’s ecstasies. This was what he had belonging to himself in the background all the time, when his relations had thought him so ignorant and inexperienced, and Alvar, like all the Lesters, valued himself on his own belongings.
They drove up to the door of a large house, painted in various colours, and with gaily-striped blinds and balconies; while through the ornamental iron gates they caught glimpses of the patio, gay with flowers.
Cheriton thought of the winter’s night, the blazing fire, the shy, stiff greetings that had formed Alvar’s first glimpse of Oakby. The great gates were opened, and as they came in a tall old man came forward, into whose arms Alvar threw himself with some vehement Spanish words of greeting; then, in a moment, he turned and drew Cheriton forward, saying, still in Spanish,—
“My grandfather, this is my dear brother.”
Don Guzman de la Rosa bowed profoundly, and then shook hands with Cheriton, who contrived to understand his greeting and inquiry after his health, and to utter a few words in reply, feeling more shy than he had ever done in his life; but then he was at fault.
“My grandfather says you are like what our father was when he came here; that is true, is it not? And now come in.”
Don Guzman showed the way into an inner room, which seemed dark after the brilliant patio, and was furnished much like an ordinary drawing-room; and here Cheriton was introduced to Dona Luisa Aviego, a middle-aged lady, Don Guzman’s niece, and to two exceedingly pretty young girls, and a little girl, her daughters. He felt surprised at seeing them all in French fashions. Here also was their brother, Don Manoel, a tall, dark, solemn-looking young man, who exactly fulfilled Cheriton’s idea of a Spaniard, and enabled him to understand Dona Luisa’s remark that Alvar had grown into an Englishman. The old grandfather was like a picture of Don Quixote, a very ideal of chivalry, which character a life of prudent, careful indifferentism entirely belied.
Alvar would not let Cherry stay to talk, telling him that he must rest before dinner, which was at five, and soon took him upstairs into a very comfortable bedroom, looking out on a pretty garden, and opening into another belonging to himself.
Cheriton laughed and submitted, but the novelty and beauty had taken his impressionable nature by storm and carried him quite out of himself. When left alone, he had leisure for the surprising thought that his father had gone through all these experiences without their apparently leaving any trace except one of distaste and aversion; next, to wonder whether it was Alvar’s fault or their own that they had remained so ignorant of Alvar’s country; and lastly, that spite of the similarity of colouring to his Spanish kindred and something in the carriage, Alvar did look like a Lester and an Englishman after all.