“Suriña, Suriña, I think I hear the marchioness saying good-by in the hall. If she is going, it is because every one else has gone. Mamma will be here directly, I am certain. Try to slip away without being seen. Good-by; go quietly so that no one may hear you.”
The girl obeyed with the same passiveness she had shown throughout, in her utter submissiveness, not even claiming the last embrace. Rogelio lighted the lamp again, carefully straightening the wick. He then closed the bedroom window, and standing before his bureau glass, brushed his hair and parted it with a little comb. Then putting his hands into his trousers pockets he stood for a while studying carefully, with eager curiosity, his own countenance, questioning his own eyes in the mirror, as if to convince himself that, after this vertigo had passed away, he still preserved his individuality, and that there did not remain in him a something belonging to another individuality, a something which could not be effaced and which would betray him. Then the thought of his mother came again to oppress his heart. But this feeling, suddenly gave way to a burst of joy, and running to the window he threw it open, allowing the pure night air to blow in upon him and, grasping the window bars, drew a long, deep breath.
EPILOGUE.
Punctual as the sun, Don Gaspar made his appearance at four in the afternoon with a little carriage, to take his future housekeeper back with him to his house. Being told that Esclavita was on her way there, he again got into his shabby landau and told the coachman to drive quickly home. His impatience would not permit him to walk with his lame foot.
At the last moment Doña Aurora had called Esclavita and put into her hands, in addition to her wages, a handsome present of money and a pair of torquoise earrings. “I don’t want her to go away dissatisfied,” she said to herself. “And, indeed, the poor girl looked greatly altered. I really believe she had a liking for the boy, which makes my resolution all the more prudent. I pity her, and I know that it is folly for me to do so. Where could she find a home like the one I have provided for her? I am doing her a very great service; that is what sets my mind at rest. She has a sinecure.”
With all this, Señora de Pardiñas could not repress a certain feeling of disquietude, of secret pain, of overwhelming pity, which she afterward interpreted as a presentiment of coming evil. “The idea of my pitying her,” she said to herself, “when I am certain that I have found her the best situation a girl of her class could possibly desire.” And Señora de Pardiñas was firmly convinced of the truth of what she said. Like many good-hearted people, incapable of hating or injuring any one, who like to think that they are acting in the interests of others when they are really prompted by self-interest, she wished to persuade herself that she had at heart Esclava’s good, and not, primarily, her son’s welfare, just as this motive might seem to her, and as it really was.
She was somewhat reassured when she heard Fausta joking Esclavita in the kitchen, humming, “And now I serve a doting old man, and I am the mistress of the house.”
“Fausta is right,” she thought. “She will be mistress in Señor de Febrero’s house. If she doesn’t make herself too much so——”
The train for Galicia started at thirty-five minutes past seven, and at that pleasant twilight hour the platform of the Northern Depot was filled with a hurried and animated crowd of travelers and their friends who had come to see them off, the latter envying those who were going to see beautiful scenery, to breathe the sea air, to enjoy a cool temperature, and to spend a few months pleasantly in a healthy and
