I, as you may be sure, was gallant and attentive, and I followed her example with the bonbons.
My former aunt, Christina de Portero, is at the happy age of between twenty-eight and thirty. Or, possibly, she is as old as thirty-two. Her figure is slender and supple, with those bold expansions of the hips which, in dancing the fandango, make short work of the skirt. Add to these fascinating details the accurate information with which I have already supplied you on the subject of her exuberant bust, and you can picture her very well for yourself.
She has a fine erect head, clear and singularly expressive features, a warm complexion, a Grecian nose, with quivering nostrils, and a mouth adorned with pearly teeth, with a soft, black, downy growth on her upper lip. She is an Andalusian, overflowing with life and spirits, whose exuberance, however, is tempered by her graceful and truly refined demeanour. One can guess what a fire of passion smoulders within her.
My uncle was in perfection that evening. From time to time he discarded his philosophic calm in order to take a look at us and reply in Spanish to his fair friend's questions. He addressed her as "querida," in that indulgent tone which is peculiar to him, like a pasha who is signifying his approbation.
During the course of our conversation I discovered that things had gone on like this between them since the day after that famous scene at Villebon, whose lively incidents had doubtless conduced to this friendly reconciliation. How had my uncle managed to get round the ferocious native of Toulon? That I could never discover. However this may have been, after the play was over, we went off, all three of us, to the Café Anglais.
We had a capital supper, during which Madame Jean Bonaffé, feeling more at her ease under these intimate circumstances, gave free play to her fascinations. I could soon perceive that in her pleasure at forgetting her regrettable escapades of the past, her grief over her supposed widowhood, and also the short-lived and illegal marriage which she had contracted by mistake, she expected that my uncle would settle her at Paris. She appeared to speak of this happy prospect as of something upon which her mind was set, and it gave rise to a number of beautiful castles in the air.
Barbassou-Pasha, gallant and attentive as ever, listened to all these proposed arrangements for her felicity, in that good-natured, patronizing manner which he always maintains with women, and only departs from in the case of my aunt Eudoxia, who keeps him in check. Nodding his approval of everything she said, he went on eating and drinking, like a practical man who will not neglect the claims of a good supper, and he allowed the fair Andalusian to lavish all her attentions upon him.
About two o'clock in the morning, we took a brougham, drove back my aunt to the Rue de l'Arcade, where she occupies a splendidly furnished suite of rooms, and then returned home.
"What do you think of all that, my dear Louis? Hum!"