“I have two temperaments,” Artegui resumed, “and, like a child, I give way to the impulses of both without reflection. In general, I am what my father was—firm of will, reticent, and self-controlled; but at times my mother’s temperament governs me. My poor mother suffered when she was very young, in her remote castle in Brittany, from nervous attacks, fits of gloom, and mental disturbance which she has never succeeded in overcoming completely, although she has suffered less from them since my birth than she did before. She lost a part of her malady and I acquired it. Is it to be wondered at if I sometimes act and speak, not like a man, but like a woman or a child!”
“The truth is, Don Ignacio,” exclaimed Lucía, “that in your sober senses you would not think what—what you said there.”
“In company with you,” he said, “with a young and loyal creature who loves life, and feels, and believes, what business had I to speak of anything sad, or to set forth abstruse theories, turning a pleasure excursion into a lecture? Could anything be more absurd? I am a fool. Lucía,” he ended, with naturalness and without bitterness, “you will forgive me for my want of tact, will you not?”
“Yes, Don Ignacio,” she murmured, in a low voice.
Artegui drew his chair toward the fire and sat down, stretching out his hands and feet toward the blaze.
“Are you still cold?” he asked Lucía.
“No, indeed; on the contrary, I am delightfully warm.”
“Let me feel your hands.”
Lucía, without rising, held out her hands to Artegui, who found that they were soft and warm and soon released them.
“On account of the rain,” he continued, “I could not take you a little farther, as I wished to do, to Biarritz, where there are very pretty villas and parks in the English style. Indeed, we enjoyed scarcely anything of the beautiful country. How fragrant the hay and the clover were! And the earth. The smell of freshly turned earth is somewhat pungent but pleasant.”