Every eye was turned toward the window. The duke had disappeared.
“Now he has no doubt gone to the park to try to meet her; shall we go see?”
“Yes, yes; the sight will be amusing.”
They rose, and hastily gathering up their fans, parasols, and veils, hurried toward the door.
“Eh, young ladies!” said the Countess of Monteros, “don’t walk so fast. I am not so young as you are, and I shall be left behind. By my faith,” she added, under her breath, “when I see my fine nephew I shall tell him what I think of him for making that poor Matilde, who is an angel, grieve herself to death by his conduct, as he is doing.”
While Pilar amused herself in a manner so agreeable to her inclinations, Lucía sat waiting for her on the balcony of the châlet. At this hour neither Miranda nor Perico was in the house. The Casino had swallowed up every one. Only at rare intervals was a passer-by to be seen in this retired neighborhood. The only sound to be heard was the monotonous noise of the machine on which the daughter of the concierge was sewing. In the garden, the roses, drunk with the sunshine which they had been quaffing all the morning, exhaled themselves in perfumes; even the cold white roses showed the effects of the heat in a tinge, like pale flesh-color, but flesh-color still. It seemed as if all the odors of the garden had mingled together to form one sole odor, penetrating, powerful, inebriating, like the fragrance of a single rose, but a rose of gigantic size—a glowing rose that exhaled from its purple mouth an intoxicating and deadly fragrance. Lucía had taken her work and busied herself at it for a while, but after a quarter of an hour or so the cushion fell from her lap, the thimble slipped from her finger, and she sat with vacant gaze fixed on the clump of rose bushes, until at last her eyelids closed of themselves, and leaning her forehead against the vine that covered the balcony, she abandoned herself to the delicious enjoyment of the balmy air, unconscious of external sights or sounds, scarcely breathing. Two months before she could not have remained quiet for half an hour; the beauty of nature would have incited her to physical activity. Now, on the contrary, it invited her to repose, it produced in her a sort of half-conscious torpor, like that of the lizard sleeping in the sun.
One afternoon Pilar, returning from the clubhouse, found Lucía more pensive than usual.
“Silly child,” she said, “of what are you thinking? If you were to go to the Casino it would amuse you greatly.”
“Pilarcita,” murmured Lucía, throwing her arms around the neck of her friend, “will you keep a secret for me if I tell you one?”
The eyes of the sick girl lighted up.