FREDERICK MARRIED DOLORES.
That same evening the young couple left for Madrid, where a handsome suite of apartments had been prepared for them in a house on the Calle del Barquillo.
The first weeks of the honey-moon were delightful. Through his wife's relatives Frederick became acquainted with all the leaders of society at Madrid. The life of the young couple was a whirl of perpetual excitement and pleasure; they were invited everywhere and attended court receptions, embassy balls, and official entertainments. Frederick was very proud of Dolores, and she became every day more and more infatuated with her handsome and gifted husband. Frederick, who had a love for everything beautiful, and who was a born artist, had arranged their apartment of the Calle del Barquillo with such exquisite taste and elegance that it was the talk of the whole town. The luxury displayed in every detail, from the magnificent Gobelin tapestries which lined the walls down to the dinner services of priceless Sevres and Japanese porcelain, the marvelous toilets which he insisted that his wife should wear, and the splendid dinners and entertainments they gave all cost a great deal of money, and at the end of the winter season Frederick could once more foresee the moment when not only his own fortune but also his wife's dowry would have vanished. He had been made a member of several clubs, and with a view of reimbursing himself for what his daily life cost, he began to risk large sums at the card table.
Six months after his marriage he met with a rather serious accident. His horses took fright while he was being driven home one morning from witnessing the execution by the “garrote” of the regicide Francisco Otero, and he was flung with such violence to the pavement that his ankle was broken. His victoria having been shattered to pieces, he was driven to his house by a young stranger who had witnessed the catastrophe and had offered his assistance. An intimacy soon sprang up between the two, and the affection which Frederick displayed toward the stranger, whose name was Louis Berard, was one of the only really disinterested ones in his life.
As soon as Frederick had recovered sufficiently to travel, he left Madrid with his wife for a few weeks' sojourn at Biarritz, on the Bay of Biscay. The weather was not yet hot enough to be disagreeable, and the sea-breeze proved very beneficial to him. The pretty bathing resort, far from being deserted at this season of the year, still contained a considerable number of English, American, and Russian families who had been wintering there, and the Casino was nearly as animated and frequented as in the months of September and October, which constitute the fashionable season of Biarritz.
One morning Frederick, who could now walk without any difficulty, proposed to his wife that they should go for a stroll to the Vieux-Port, and they set off in high spirits, taking a path along the shore, which latter is lined here with lofty cliffs, in which large and mysterious-looking caves have been excavated by the waves. It was a lovely day, although the sun was not shining. Both sea and sky were of that delicate pearly tint which reminds one of the inside of a shell; the violets were thick in the hedges, and the yellow blossoms of the butterwort were flung like so many gold pieces over the brown furrows of the fields. Far below them the sea was full of life; market boats and fishing boats, skiffs and canoes of all kinds, with striped sails, were crossing each other on its surface. There were lovely white wreaths of mist to the southward, airy and suggestive as the vail of a bride, and the silver-shining wings of a score of white sea-gulls dipped now and again in the hollows of the lazy wavelets. The air was full of the intense perfume of the trees, which were starred all over with their white and pink blossoms. In the distance the beautiful coast of Spain stretched away into endless realms of sparkling, though subdued, light, and the lofty range of the Pyrenees rose blue and snow-crowned behind the fairy shore of this enchanted paradise.