He perused the short note in silence. When he raised his eyes from the page, Agueda had turned and was walking away through the vista of young palms. Her weary and dispirited air struck him somewhat with remorse.
"Agueda," he called, "stop at the hill yonder and get some coffee and rest yourself." His words did not stay her. She turned her head, shook it gravely, and then walked onward.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] A boyish trick.
XV
Don Gil Silencio and the Señora sat within the shady corner of the veranda. In front of the Señora stood a small wicker table. Upon the table was an old silver teapot, battered in the side, whose lid had difficulty in shutting. This relic of the past had been brought from England by the old Señora when she returned from the refuge she had obtained there, in one of her periodical escapes from old Don Oviedo. The old Señora had brought back with her the fashion of afternoon tea; also some of the leaves from which that decoction is made. The teapot, as well as the traditionary fashion of tea at five o'clock, had been left as legacies to her grandson, but of the good English tea there remained not the smallest grain of dust. The old Señora had been prodigal of her tea. She had on great occasions used more than a saltspoonful of the precious leaves at a drawing, and every one knows that at that rate even two pounds of tea will not last forever.
They had been married now for two weeks, the Señor Don Gil and the Señora, and for the first time in her young life the Señora was happy. Sad to have reached the age of seventeen and not to have passed one happy day, hardly a happy hour! Now the girl was like a bird let loose, but the Señor, for a bridegroom, seemed somewhat distrait and dejected. As he sipped his weak decoction he often raised his eyes to the wooded heights beyond which Troja lay.
"What is the matter, Gil? Is not the tea good?"