“What do you say, Incoul?” Blydenburg asked. “Wouldn’t you like it?” he inquired of Maida.
“I could tell better when we get there,” she answered; “but we might go,” she added, looking at her husband.
“Why,” said Blydenburg, “we could see Madrid and Burgos and Valladolid. It’s all in the way.”
Lenox interrupted him. “They are tiresome cities though, and gloomy to a degree. Valladolid and Burgos are like congeries of deserted prisons, Madrid is little different from any other large city. Fuenterrabia, next door here, is a thousand times more interesting. It is Cordova you should visit and Ronda and Granada and Sevilla and Cadix.” And, as he uttered the names of these cities, he aromatized each of them with an accent that threw Blydenburg into stupors of admiration. Pronounced in that way they seemed worth visiting indeed.
“Which of them do you like the best?”
“I liked them all,” Lenox answered. “I liked each of them best.”
“But which is the most beautiful?”
“That depends on individual taste. I prefer Ronda, but Grenada, I think, is most admired. If you will let me, I will quote a high authority:
“‘Grenade efface en tout ses rivales; Grenade
Chante plus mollement la molle sérénade;
Elle peint ses maisons des plus riches couleurs,
Et l’on dit, que les vents suspendent leurs haleines,
Quand, par un soir d’été, Grenade dans ses plaines,
Répand ses femmes et ses fleurs.’”
In private life, verse is difficult of recitation, but Lenox recited well. He made such music of the second line that there came with his voice the sound of guitars; the others he delivered with the vowels full as one hears them at the Comédie, and therewith was a little pantomime so explanatory and suggestive that Blydenburg, whose knowledge of French was of the most rudimentary description, understood it all, and, in consequence, liked the young man the better.