The past, to which Wilhelm and Pilar had closed their eyes till now, presented itself that afternoon in incontestably lively form before them. Dispelled was the artificial fabric of their dream of a love that was as old as life itself—dispelled the poetic figment that they were in the honeymoon of a young pure union of the heart! These three children told a tale of Pilar in which Wilhelm bore no part, and the chapters of that story bore different names, as did the children themselves.
Pilar divined easily enough what was passing in Wilhelm's mind at sight of the children. She never let them come to the house again, but henceforth went to see them at their respective homes. He was sure that they liked coming to the Boulevard Pereire, and was sorry that they should miss this pleasure on his account. Pilar begged him, however, not to allude to the subject again—he was dearer to her than her children, and there was nothing she would not do to spare him a moment's unpleasantness.
The first visitor whom Wilhelm saw in Pilar's house was a little tubby gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a rosette in his buttonhole, composed of sixteen different colored ribbons at the very lowest computation. He enjoyed the privilege of coming at any hour of the day, and being instantly admitted to the boudoir. He was introduced to Wilhelm as Don Antonio Gorra, and Pilar explained afterward that Don Antonio was a lawyer, an old friend of her family, and that he conducted her business affairs for her. For a time she had long daily consultations, to which Wilhelm was not invited. As soon as he left, she would come to Wilhelm with a significant and mysterious air, evidently expecting that he would ask what all this putting together of heads might mean. As he did not evince the slightest curiosity, she grew impatient at last, and asked with assumed lightness:
"Are you not at all jealous, you fish-blooded German?"
"Jealous? No, I certainly am not. Besides which, you give me no cause."
"Indeed! and what about my tete-a-tetes with Don Antonio?"
"Oh, Don Antonio!" laughed Wilhelm.
"You are quite right, sweetheart, but it aggravates me that you should not want to know what he and I are brewing. You do not take nearly so much interest in my affairs as you ought."
"But you told me that Don Antonio was your man of business."
"Well, then—no—this time it is not a matter of business. I wanted to prepare a surprise for you." She seated herself on his knee, and laying her cheek to his, she whispered: "I have been trying to have myself naturalized in Belgium, and then, as a Belgian subject, get a divorce from Count Pozaldez. In that way I might have become your wife before the law as well."