“Father Urtazu is a Jesuit?”
“Yes, and so learned! There is nothing he does not know. Sometimes, to vex Doña Romualda, the directress of the seminary I attended, I used to say to her, ‘I would rather have Father Urtazu for my teacher than you.’”
“And now,” said Artegui, with the brutal curiosity that prompts the fingers to tear apart the bud, leaf by leaf, until its inmost heart is laid bare, “and now you are happier than ever before? I should say so! Just think of it—to be married, nothing less!”
Lucía, without perceiving the ironical accent in which her companion uttered these words, answered frankly:
“Well, I will tell you. I always wanted to marry to please my father. I did not want to torment him with all that nonsense about lovers with which other girls torment their parents. My friends, that is some of them, if they chanced to see an officer of the garrison pass before their window—lo! on the instant they were dying in love with him, and it was nothing but sending and receiving letters. I used to be amazed at their falling in love in that way, just from seeing a man pass by in the street—and as I had never felt anything for any one of those men, and as I already knew Señor de Miranda, and father liked him so much, I thought to myself, ‘It is the best thing I can do; in this way I shall have no trouble about the matter,’—was I not right?—‘I have only to close my eyes, say yes, and the thing is done. Father will be pleased, and I also.’”
Artegui looked so fixedly at her, that Lucía felt her cheeks burn beneath the ardor of his gaze, and blushing to the roots of her hair, she murmured:
“I tell you all the nonsensical thoughts that come into my head. As we have nothing else to talk about——”
He continued to search with his gaze the open and youthful countenance before him, as the steel blade probes the living flesh. He knew very well that frankness and candor are often more truly the signs of innocence than reticence and reserve, and yet he could not but marvel at the extreme simplicity of the young girl. It was necessary in order to understand it, to consider that the vigorous physical health of the body had preserved the spirit pure. Fever had never rendered languid the gaze of those eyes with their bluish cornea; the excitation that wastes the strength of the growing girl, in the trying age between ten and fifteen, had never paled those fresh and rosy lips. Lucía might be likened to a rosebud with all its petals closed, raising itself proudly in the midst of its brilliant green leaves upon its strong and graceful stem.
The heat, which had been steadily increasing, was now overpowering. When they arrived at Alsásua, Lucía again complained of thirst and Artegui, offering her his arm, conducted her to the dining-room of the restaurant, reminding her that as several hours had passed since she had supped, it would be well to eat something now.
“Breakfast for two,” he called to the waiter, clapping his hands to attract the man’s attention.