And as Perico was going away with bent head, the doctor added:
“Above all, no excitement, no dancing, no swimming—mental repose—neither music nor novels. Peasant women, afflicted with the disease from which your sister is suffering, cure themselves with water into which a handful of nails or old iron has been thrown. Civilization tends to make everything artificial. If she wants to get well let her not keep late hours, let her attend no entertainments;—a loose corset—low heels——”
“Yes, yes, order the impossible, the impossible,” lisped Perico, under his breath. “Ask my sister to give up a single one of her pleasures; she would not do so though she knew Old Nick were to carry her off if she refused.”
When Pilar heard the opinion of the Esculapius she threw her arms around Perico’s neck in a transport of sisterly affection such as she had never before manifested. She employed a thousand wiles to obtain her desire; she grew gentle, obedient, prudent in all things, and promised all and more than all that was asked of her.
“Periquin, precious, come, say that you will take me. Say that you will take me, silly. There is no one in the world to be compared to you. What Puertollano are you talking about? Let us go to France. How delightful! It seems like a dream. What will Visitacion and the de Lomillos say when they hear it! But you see, when the doctor orders it, it has to be done. You think I am going to be in your way, hanging on to you all the time? No, my dear boy, I shall find plenty of friends. Don’t you suppose there will be some one there whom we know? I will manage, you shall see. I will make a gown of gray holland, that will last me—Well, well, don’t be waspish. I know that I must lead a regular life, of course, and go to bed early—at eight, with the chickens. What more do you want? Ah, what a treasure of a brother Heaven has bestowed upon me. No wonder all the girls are dying of love for him!”
“Do you think, do you think that you are deceiving me with your flatteries? Go, leave me in peace. I shall take you because it is necessary, it is necessary; if I did not, who could put up with you, put up with you next winter? But see that you behave sensibly, or I shall throw all that confounded hair into the fire,—with all your efforts you never look like a lady.”
Pilar swallowed the insult, as in such circumstances she would have swallowed a much more disagreeable dose, and thought only of the fashionable excursion which was to crown, with so much splendor, her summer expedition. Gonzalvo senior, who, besides his half-pay, had some private means, loosened his purse-strings on the occasion, not without advising his daughter, however, to be prudent and economical. With Perico’s affairs he never interfered; he made him a monthly allowance and pretended not to see that Perico spent ten times as much as he received, gave himself the airs of a prince, and never asked for an increase in the sum given him.
Thus provided, the brother and sister set out from El Sardinero in triumph for France. They rested at Bayonne, putting up at the Hotel St. Étienne, where we had the honor of making their acquaintance. Perico thought he saw the heavens open before him when he learned that Miranda and his wife intended to go on to Vichy, and recognized that Lucía was the person best suited to relieve him in the duty of bearing Pilar company, and even of nursing her should it become necessary. He accordingly encouraged the intimacy between the two women, and it was arranged that they should all travel together to Vichy.
The details given by her brother concerning Lucía and Miranda sharpened singularly the eager curiosity of the sick girl, and her keen scent perceived romantic possibilities in the events that had happened to the newly married pair. The brother and sister had conversed at length about the matter, in half-finished phrases, venturing at times on some coarser or more graphic expression than usual, with much laughter on both sides. One of Lucía’s greatest pleasures was the conversations she occasionally held with Perico, when the latter deigned to treat her, not as a child, but as a grown woman, communicating to her certain details, anecdotes, and events which, as a general thing, do not reach the ears of young girls brought up with strictness and decorum. Perico and his sister, who had no great amount of tenderness or affection for each other, had yet a perfect understanding in the field of scandal, and at times the sister completed the piquant phrase arrested on the lips of the brother by a touch of the delicacy which the presence of a woman inspires in the man least capable of delicacy. Pilar experienced an unhealthy enjoyment in witnessing aspects of the cosmograma of life unknown to the noblemen’s daughters so greatly envied by her, who, living in the cloistral atmosphere of their palaces, watched over constantly by the mother or the austere governess, bear on their brows, at the age of twenty-five, the stamp of their haughty innocence.
“I went up to Artegui’s room,” said Perico to Pilar, “because, to tell you the truth, to tell you the truth, my curiosity was aroused when I heard he had a fine girl, a fine girl with him.”