She had found a wounded cat in the fields, which some urchins had been chasing with stones. She picked it up, at the risk of being scratched, took care of it, and nursed it back to health. Now the cat followed her wherever she went and would stay only with her.
Manuel obeyed La Nena blindly, and felt, moreover, an intense satisfaction in this obedience. He looked upon her as a paragon of perfection, yet despite this, not even in his innermost self, did it ever occur to him to fall in love with her. Perhaps he considered her too good for him, too beautiful. Manuel experienced the paradoxical tendency of all imaginative men who believe that they love perfection and then fall in love with imperfection.
The summer went by pleasantly. The chalky old fellow came twice to Cogolludo, and was seemingly content. At the end of August, however, the pesetas that the baroness regularly received did not put in their appearance.
She wrote several times to Don Sergio, pleading again the persecution of which she was the victim, for in this wise she satisfied both her vanity and the self-conceit of “old Cromwell.” But Don Sergio did not fall into the trap.
There could be no doubt about it; Mingote had informed. For a while the baroness bided her time, obtaining money on one pretext or another, piling up debts. One day, toward the beginning of autumn, the house agent appeared, requesting her to vacate the premises, as they had not paid the rent in Madrid. The baroness broke into insults, and tore to pieces the character of Don Sergio; the guard, however, said that his orders were not to permit the removal of the furniture before he was paid the rent. The baroness was overwhelmed to think that her daughter would learn of her wicked life; she calculated the value of the furniture, which even in Madrid, with the forced sale of some and the pawning of other pieces, had been reduced to those articles which were strictly indispensable, and made up her mind to leave them behind and flee from Cogolludo.
One afternoon when they left the village for a stroll, the baroness explained the situation to Kate, who received the news in utter confusion.
“Shall we go to Madrid?” she concluded.
“Let’s go,” said Kate.
“This very moment?”
“This very moment.”