The señora signed her own name, Victorina de los Reyes de de Espadaña. Neither the engraver of her visiting cards nor her husband could make her renounce that second “de.”
“If I use only one ‘de,’ people will think you haven’t any, imbecile!” she said to Don Tiburcio.
Then the number of gewgaws grew, the layer of rice powder was thickened, the ribbons and laces were piled higher, and Doña Victorina regarded with more and more disdain her poor compatriots who had not had the fortune to marry husbands of so high estate as her own.
All this sublimity, however, did not prevent her being each day older and more ridiculous. Every time Captain Tiago was with her, and remembered that she had once really inspired him with love, he sent a peso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving. But he had much respect for Don Tiburcio, because of his title of specialist, and listened attentively to the rare sentences the doctor’s impediment of speech let him pronounce. For this reason and because the doctor did not lavish his visits on people at large he had chosen him to treat Maria.
As to young Linares, Doña Victorina, wishing a steward from the peninsula, her husband remembered a cousin of his, a law student at Madrid, who was considered the most astute of the family. They sent for him, and the young man had just arrived.
Father Salvi entered while Don Santiago and his guests were at the second breakfast. They talked of Maria Clara, who was sleeping; they talked of the journey, and Doña Victorina exclaimed loudly at the costumes of the provincials, their houses of nipa, and their bamboo bridges. She did not omit to inform the curate of her friendly relations with the “Segundo Cabo,” with this alcalde, with that councillor, all people of distinction, who had for her the greatest consideration.
“If you had come two days earlier, Doña Victorina,” said Captain Tiago, profiting by a slight pause in the lady’s brilliant loquacity, “you would have found His Excellency the governor general seated in this very place.”
“What! His Excellency was here? And at your house? Impossible!”
“I repeat that he was seated exactly here. If you had come two days ago——”
“Ah! What a pity Clarita did not fall ill sooner!” she cried. “You hear, cousin! His Excellency was here! You know, Don Santiago, that at Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers and dukes, and that he dined with the Count del Campanario.”