“Patience, Don Sergio. I went to see this kind lady, who is a baroness, and I said to her, ‘The boy whom you have taken into your home is worthy of the utmost encouragement. Something should be done for his education.’
“‘His mother has no means and his father, who is very wealthy, does nothing for him,’ was the baroness’s reply.
“‘Tell me who his father is, and I’ll go to see him,’ I said.
“‘It’s no use,’ she answered, ‘for you’ll get nothing out of him. His name is Don Sergio Redondo.’”
As he pronounced these words, Peñalar got up, and with his head thrown back contemplated Don Sergio, even as the exterminating angel glances upon a poor reprobate. Don Sergio turned frightfully pale, pulled out his handkerchief, rubbed his lips, hawked. It was easily to be seen that he was perturbed.
Peñalar scrutinized the old man keenly, and noting that his arrogance was abating, became more evangelical and moral than ever.
“The baroness,” he added, “said to me,—and you must pardon my undeviating sincerity—she said to me that you were an egotist and a heartless creature. But despite this,” and he smiled sweetly, feeling himself by now quite supermoral and superevangelic, “I thought: My duty is to go to see that gentleman. That is why I have come. Now you will do as your conscience dictates. I have followed the dictates of mine.”
After this little speech Peñalar had nothing more to add, and with the smile of the entire martyrology upon his lips he took his hat, saluted most ceremoniously and drew near to the door.
“And that youngster is the boy who was here?” asked Don Sergio in a low, hesitant voice.
“That is he.”