“Yes, madame. Again.”
“Have a seat, gentlemen.”
The place was a cramped, ill-lighted room crowded with far more furniture than it could easily accommodate. Within a short space were heaped together an old console with a mantle-clock upon it; several crumpled armchairs, upon which the silk, once upon a time red, had turned violet through the action of the sun; two large oil portraits, and a bevelled mirror with a cracked surface.
“I bring to you, dear Baroness,” said Mingote, “the youngster of whom we have spoken.”
“Is this the one?”
“Yes.”
“It seems to me I know this boy.”
“Yes. And I know you, too,” spoke up Manuel. “I was in a boarding-house on the Calle de Mesonero Romanos; the landlady’s name was Doña Casiana; my mother was the maid-of-all-work there.”
“Indeed. That’s so. And your mother,—how is she getting along?” asked the baroness of Manuel.
“She’s dead.”