Soon after Mrs. Gainsborough met her American, Sylvia made the acquaintance of a youthful guide of thirteen or fourteen years, who for a very small wage adopted her and gave her much entertainment. Somehow or other Rodrigo had managed to pick up a good deal of English and French, which, as he pointed out, enabled him to compete with the older guides who resented his intrusion. Rodrigo did not consider that the career of a guide was worthy of real ambition. For the future he hesitated between being a gentleman’s servant and a tobacconist in Gibraltar. He was a slim child with the perfect grace of the young South in movements and in manners alike.
Rodrigo was rather distressed at the beginning by Sylvia’s want of appetite for mere sight-seeing; he reproved her indeed very gravely for wasting valuable time in repeating her visits to favorite spots while so many others remained unvisited. He was obsessed by the rapidity with which most tourists passed through Granada, but when he discovered that Sylvia had no intention of hurrying or being hurried, his native indolence blossomed to her sympathy and he adapted himself to her pleasure in sitting idle and dreaming in the sun.
Warmer weather came in February, and Rodrigo suggested that the Alhambra should be visited by moonlight. He did not make this suggestion because it was the custom of other English people to desire this experience; he realized that the Señorita was not influenced by what other people did; at the same time the Alhambra by moonlight could scarcely fail to please the Señorita’s passion for beauty. He himself had a passion for beauty, and he pledged his word she would not regret following his advice; moreover, he would bring his guitar.
On a February night, when the moon was still high, Sylvia and Rodrigo walked up the avenue that led to the Alhambra. There was nobody on the summit but themselves. Far down lights flitted in the gipsy quarter, and there came up a faint noise of singing and music.
It was Carnival, Rodrigo explained, and the Señorita would have enjoyed it; but, alas! there were many rascals about on such nights, and though he was armed, he did not recommend a visit. He brought out his guitar; from beneath her Spanish cloak Sylvia also brought out a guitar.
“The Señorita plays? Maravilloso!” Rodrigo exclaimed. “But why the Señorita did not inform me to carry her guitar? The hill was long. The Señorita will be tired.”
Sylvia opened with one of her old French songs, after which Rodrigo, who had paid her a courteous and critical attention, declared that she had a musician’s soul like himself, and forthwith, in a treble that was limpid as the moon, light, unpassionate as the snow, remote as the mountains, he too sang.
“Exquisite,” Sylvia sighed.
The Señorita was too kind, and as if to disclaim the compliment he went off into a mad gipsy tune. Suddenly he broke off.
“Hark! Does the Señorita hear a noise of weeping?”