“God grant it!” sighed the general, “but my dear nephew Raphael Arias is a living contradiction of his axiom. Every day he brings new faces to our reunions, and it is insupportable.”
“There, already, is my uncle,” said Raphael, “who ever tilts against strangers. A stranger is the blue-devil of General Santa-Maria. My lord duke, if you had not appointed me your aid-de-camp when you were minister of war, I could not have found so many acquaintances at Madrid among foreign diplomatists, and these gentlemen would not have pressed me so with their letters of introduction. Do you believe, uncle, that it is very amusing to me to act as cicerone to every traveller? It has been my only occupation since my arrival at Seville.”
“And who obliges you,” replied the general, “to open our doors—open them wide—to all new-comers, and put ourselves at their orders? That is not done in Paris, and much less so is it the custom in London.”
“My uncle,” said the countess, “all people have their peculiar characteristics; each society its usages. Strangers are more reserved than we, and they have the same reserve among themselves: be just.”
“Has any one recently arrived?” demanded the duke. “I ask you this, because I expect Lord G., one of the most distinguished men I know. Is he in Seville?”
“I think not,” replied Raphael. “At present we have here, first, Major Fly, whom we call Mosca—it is the translation of his name. He serves in the Queen’s Guards, and is nephew of the Duke of W., one of the grand personages of England.”
“Yes, nephew of the Duke of W.,” said the general, “as I am of the Grand Turk.”
“He is young,” pursued Raphael, “elegant, and a good fellow, but of colossal stature: he should be placed at a certain distance from you to have his whole form appreciated; close, he appears so large, so robust, so angular, so stiff, that he loses a hundred per cent. When he is not at table, he is always at my side, whether I am at home, or whether I am out. When my servant told him I was out, he replied that he would wait for me; and when he came in at the door, I escaped by the window. He has the habit of using his cane as a weapon: his thrusts, however, are very innocent, and wound only the air. As he has very long and vigorous arms, and as my room is small, he damages all the walls; and he has already broken, I do not know how many squares of glass. Seated on a chair, he so moves about, so tosses, and stretches himself out in such a fashion, that he has already broken four of them.
“The sight of this man is sufficient to throw my hostess into a rage. Sometimes he takes a book; and it is the best thing he could do, for it puts him to sleep. But conquest is his mania—his fixed idea—his war-horse. In it lies all his hopes, which, however, are yet in embryo. He has for the fair sex the same illusion that the Castilian peasant who goes to Mexico has for the hard dollars: the poor man arrives in Mexico, believing that he has only to present himself to grasp them. I have tried to undeceive the major, but I have preached in the desert. When I speak reasonably to him, he smiles with an air of incredulity, caressing his enormous mustache. He is in correspondence with a millionaire heiress; and that which is very curious, is, that this Ajax of thirty years, who devours four pounds of beef-steak and drinks three bottles of sherry at a single repast, makes his betrothed believe that he is travelling for his health! The other knave, as my uncle would call him, is a Frenchman, the Baron de Maude.”
“Baron,” replied the general maliciously, “yes, a baron as I am a pope.”