"She looks like an infanticide," said the priest when he saw her again, "but she's prettier than ever."
Whether any transgression had been committed, none could say with surety; soon everything was forgotten; a patron appeared for the girl, and he was, from all appearances, wealthy. In commemoration of so happy an event the boarders participated in the treat. After the supper they drank cognac and brandy, the priest played the guitar, Irene danced sevillanas with less grace than a bricklayer, as the landlady said; the Superman sang some fados that he had learned in Portugal, and the Biscayan, not to be outdone, burst forth into some malagueñas that might just as well have been a cante flamenco or the Psalms of David.
Only the blond student with the eyes of steel abstained from the celebration; he was absorbed in his thoughts.
"And you, Roberto," Celia said to him several times,—"don't you sing or do anything?"
"Not I," he replied coldly.
"You haven't any blood in your veins."
The youth looked at her for a moment, shrugged his shoulders indifferently and his pale lips traced a smile of disdainful mockery.
Then, as almost always happened in these boarding-house sprees, some wag turned on the music-box in the corridor and the duet from La Mascotte together with the waltz from La Diva rose in confusion upon the air; the Superman and Celia danced a couple of waltzes and the party wound up with everybody singing a habanera, until they wearied and each owl flew off to his nest.
CHAPTER IV
Oh, love, love!—What's Don Telmo Doing?—Who is Don
Telmo?—Wherein the Student and Don Telmo Assume Certain
Novelesque Proportions.