“My child,” said Portal, to tease her, “you can’t convince me. You have only changed an open skin-flint for a hypocritical one. Armiñón has more dollars than the sands of the sea, and yet he has not bought you a coach nor given you furniture upholstered in silk. Don’t tell me how generous he is! He owes you a satin divan and a carriage drawn by an English mare, as much as I owe my life to my father. The Sevillana and Concha Rios go about in their carriages dressed like two queens. What good do your beautiful dresses and diamond ear-rings do you if you can’t go to the Retiro to display them?”
“Stop! stop! don’t talk to me about coaches, it makes me sick!” answered the fair sinner, greatly annoyed, in spite of herself, by that about the carriage. “Do you believe if I were to ask him for a coach he would refuse me? But I shall not ask for it. I have too much self-respect, do you know? When I see decent people so different from your Judas Iscariot uncle—my dear fellow, what a creature he is! He cannot be your real uncle. Perhaps your grandmother——”
Afterward she drew us the likeness of her stockbroker.
“The best thing about him is that he comes very seldom to see me. And never until after the stock exchange is closed. And some days he doesn’t appear at all. To-day, for example. He sent me word, and that’s the reason I am taking things so easy.”
“But if he should take it into his head to make his appearance here suddenly?”
“What a difficulty! I would not open the door. He has no latch-key. I assure you there is nobody like him, he is so good. If I were to say ‘a carriage,’ he would answer ‘with six horses.’ Well, if he comes, I’ll tell him in the morning that I went out with Fausta to see my mother and Cinta, and he’ll believe it implicitly.”
“And how are they?” inquired Portal.
“Who, my mother and the other one? Well, my boy, they are unbearable. If you should give them a silver mine they would ask for a gold one. I try all the time to shake them off, for they are like leeches; and how they bleed me! And will you believe it, Cinta has taken it upon herself to preach to me and to say that before she would subject herself to any man for money she would work and make an honest living. She wants to become a singer in comic opera. The trouble is, she will have to learn how first. But I have persuaded my gentleman to rent a piano and pay for a teacher for me, and the girl may come here to take her lessons. One must squeeze the lemon. What is a rich man good for, say I, if not for that? Well, my boy, you must stay here to-day, and do penance in this house. You’ll see what an elegant dinner service and what beautiful silver I have; that is to say, plated, for there is no use in exposing one’s self to being robbed. I’ll put on my nice silk dress, which he gave me a short time ago on his birthday. Nonsense! I want you to see me in my finery. I’ll wear my watch. It does not go well, but it is gold. Luisillo may go off if he wants to, but you must stay here!”
A few days after the call on Belén, as Luis and I were walking through Recoletos, my friend said, half in earnest, half in jest:
“All rogues are fortunate. That Belén is crazy over you; I never saw so capricious a woman. I had to give her some good advice yesterday, lest she should send off her stockbroker and go back to live in a garret in order to be able to receive you whenever she pleases and with perfect freedom. I have told her to hold on to him until she finds another who is more generous and can give her a carriage and solid silver instead of plated ware. How I did preach to her! Never a mission preacher did better. But you are such a lucky dog! What a fancy that girl has taken to you. And yet you don’t feel contented. You are still wool gathering. If I cut you off a chicken’s wing——”