“As for me,” answered Miranda, “if the worst were only to leave Leon—for, to tell the truth, that village bores me to death, although it is not without its advantages. But if matters go any further I shall be in a pretty fix.”
“And the most likely thing is that they will go further. Fortune is the enemy of the old. You have changed greatly for the worse, of late. That hair—do you remember what a splendid head of hair you had? We shall both soon be obliged to have recourse to acorn-oil as a heroic remedy in extremis.”
“To hear you speak,” exclaimed Miranda, twisting the locks on his temples with his former martial air, “one would suppose that I was bald. I think I manage to ward off the attacks of time very well. My ailments have made me a little——”
“Are you ill?” interrupted Colmenar; “leaks in the roof, my boy; leaks in the roof!”
“An affection of the liver, complicated with—— But in that antiquated village of Leon I have stumbled upon one of the most modern of physicians, a savant,” Miranda hastened to add, observing the bored look of the leader, who feared he was going to be treated to a history of the disease. “I assure you that Velez de Rada is a prodigy. A confirmed materialist, it is true——”
“Like all doctors,” said Colmenar, with a shrug of the shoulders. “And how about other matters? Have you made many conquests in Leon? Are the Leonese girls susceptible?”
“Bah, hypocrites!” exclaimed Miranda, who, in the unreserve of confidential intercourse permitted himself to indulge in an occasional touch of irreverence. “The Jesuits have their heads turned with confraternities and novenas, and they go about devouring the saints with kisses. There is little social intercourse,—every one in his own house and God in the house of every one. But, after all, that suits me very well, since I require to rest and to lead a regular life.”
Colmenar listened in silence, tracing with his eyes the pattern on the soft, thick carpet.
At last he raised his head and slapped his forehead with his open palm.
“An unprecedented idea had just occurred to me,” he said, repeating the celebrated phrase of the Portuguese minister. “Why don’t you marry, my dear fellow?”