Rafael’s crying suddenly ceased. The loyal little lad sat upright on Rodrigo’s knee and turned his stained and swollen face with a certain dignity upon the old servant.
“You are not to speak to my father like that, Tia Marta,” he said. “What my father does is right.”
“Oh, the impudent little cherub!” cried Tia Marta, hugely delighted, while Don Carlos had to turn away to hide the quiver that surprised his lip.
The next day Pilarica, though she slept till noon, was as well as ever, but Rafael lay, now shaking with chills, now burning with fever, yet always wearing the rumpled red fez, which his light-headed fancies seemed to connect with the look of comprehending love in his father’s eyes.
Those first few days left little memory of their stupors and their nauseas and their pains, but when Rafael began to pay heed to life once more, he found himself thin and languid, to be sure, but the object of most gratifying attentions from the entire household. His cot had been placed—not without a pitched battle between Don Carlos and Tia Marta—under the old olive tree just before the door, and Grandfather, in his accustomed seat on the mosaic bench, had brightened up again into the best of entertainers. All this stir and excitement in the household seemed to have scattered the mists that had been creeping slowly over his brain. He was more alert than for many months and no longer played with oranges and snails. He knew his son-in-law now and while he had as many riddles in his white head as ever, he gave them out only as the children called for them. When Rafael saw that they amused his father, the boy began to hold them in higher esteem.
“They do well for girls at any time,” he confided to Rodrigo, “and for men when we are ill.” But he insisted that the answers should be guessed.
“Ask us each a riddle in turn, please, Grandfather,” he requested one marvelous Andalusian evening, when the earliest stars were pricking with gold the rich purple of the sky, “and I will pronounce the forfeits for those who fail.”
“With whom do I begin?” asked Grandfather.
“With my father, of course,” responded Rafael.
“No, no, my son. Always the ladies first,” corrected Don Carlos, drawing Pilarica to his side.