“And is it known, finally, whether the Swede is the daughter or the wife of that baron of—of—I never can remember his name—well, of that old man who escorts her?” asked the countess, allowing herself to be drawn at last, in spite of her dignity, into the current of curiosity.
“Of Holdteufel?” asked Amalia Amézega, in a sing-song voice. “Bah! who knows! But judging by the liberty he allows her he would seem to be her husband rather than her father.”
“One needs to have effrontery,” continued Luisa Natal, with gentle and smiling condemnation, “to make one’s self the talk of every one in that way.”
“The idea!” said Pilar, in her thin voice. “Why, that is what he wants. What do you suppose? The point of the thing and the pleasure of it are in being talked about.”
“Juanito was always the same—always fond of making a noise,” murmured the countess softly, remembering how her nephew, when a wild boy of ten, used to go to her house and give her a headache, teasing her for a thousand nonsensical things.
“Why, the day before yesterday——”
Eager curiosity was expressed in every face. The group drew their chairs closer together and for a full minute a sound of casters rolling over the floors could be heard.
“The day before yesterday,” continued Amalia Amézega, lowering her voice, “she went to the shooting match——”
“Do you shoot now?” asked Pilar and Luisa Natal simultaneously.
“A little, for amusement,” and Lola smoothed down the straight black fringe of hair that covered her forehead to within half an inch of the eyebrows, making her look like a page of the Middle Ages, setting off the tropical pallor of her face and her large eyes like those of a child, but of a malicious and precocious child.