Monsalvat shook hands with her parents and followed to the narrow hallway which led to the stairs. Moreno was coming along too but Irene told him to stay with her mother.
"She gives the orders! Now you see, Doctor, what has become of my paternal authority. I'm just the watch-dog. I hear and obey, for fear of the whip! When your career is over, that's what you get! My dear doctor, I am your servant!" Monsalvat followed Irene down the dark hall for a few yards. They came closer to one another, his clothing touched hers. He was conscious of the girl's burning passion, he felt himself being drawn towards her. In the semi-darkness Irene's brilliant eyes gleamed strangely.
"Well, what news?" asked Monsalvat uneasily.
"News!" Irene with quick violence pulled Monsalvat's face toward hers and placed on his mouth her hot, trembling lips.
He turned faint. His will abandoned him. He heard the wild, mad words Irene was saying. "He must take her away!" She pressed her trembling body close to his. Suddenly Monsalvat came to himself. Nacha's image arose before his eyes.... With a strength which came from the depths of his soul he pushed Irene away from him. This poor passionate girl was threatening his ideal. All that he had so far accomplished was in danger of crumbling to dust. The only justification of his life would, with a moment's weakness, be lost. He said good-bye to her, asked her to forgive him and walked quietly toward the stairs.
"Don't leave me this way," she cried. "If I can't work for you, live for you, I shall die, I shall kill myself ... if you won't take me with you!"
But Monsalvat did not hear. He was already in the street.
Irene, shaken by violent shudders and sobs, with a wild cry, threw herself against the wall.
After this episode he was more eager than ever to find Nacha. He began to make the rounds of cabarets, restaurants, and theatres. But day after day passed, and there was not the slightest news of her. He began to despair when it occurred to him that the streets might furnish him the information he so anxiously sought. He became a vagabond, roaming about hour after hour, morning, afternoon, and night. The avenues in the centre of the city, those where women of pleasure passed, came to know him. He thought he saw Nacha, quickened his step, followed the woman. It was not she. He sought her face in the crowds that all morning wander idly up and down the Avenida Florida. He sought it in the throngs loitering on the wide promenade when the lights of the shop windows drive back the shadows of the high buildings. He sought her among the young and pretty women who surreptitiously pass up and down the avenue, in quest of bread, love, pleasure. He sought her at night in the streets leading toward the theatres, the movies, the cabarets. And his shadow passing up and down these places was no different from that of a man timidly seeking a daughter of joy. The thousand noises of the street, the cries of newspaper venders, automobile horns, street-car gongs, phonographs playing in the shops, the persistent scraping of shoe leather on the sidewalk, the voices of the toy venders, of the sellers of lottery tickets, of the flower girls, rang out in the strange chaotic symphony of the city. But he was deaf to it all. Lights glittered, electric street-signs flashed; blue, red, green, yellow lamps shone out from windows, sometimes far above the street; but he went by unaware of all this nightly brilliancy. The show windows tempted with jewels, flowers, books; he was blind to them. He went on, heedless of the marvelous spectacle offered by the streets of cosmopolitan exuberant, noisy, energetic, restless Buenos Aires. He was incapable of seeing anything but the face he sought: Nacha's face.
And while he searched for Nacha, he searched the streets for his sister also. But not with the same eagerness. For Eugenia, whom he scarcely knew, he had never had much affection. Besides, there was so little hope of finding her in this fashion! In the ten years that had passed since he had seen her, the transformation of an innocent twenty year old girl into a courtesan must have been thoroughly accomplished. How could he recognize her even if he met her? He wanted to come upon her and help her, yes;—but from sense of duty; and because of his mother's last wish.