Horacio seized Mingote by the scruff of the neck and shot him through the doorway. Mingote dissolved into curses, introducing Horacio’s mother into the altercation, whereupon the latter, forgetting Lord Bacon, felt the Berber in his blood, raised his foot and planted the toe of his boot upon Mingote’s buttocks. The agent shouted even more loudly, whereupon the Berber again caressed with his foot the roundest part of Mingote’s person.
The baroness foresaw that the agent would need time to take his revenge; she did not believe that he would dare to mention the forgery of the documents involving Manuel’s paternity, for his fingers would be caught in the same door. He would, however, be likely to inform Don Sergio of cousin Horacio’s presence in the house. Before he could do this, she wrote the merchant a letter asking for money with which to pay off certain debts. She sent Manuel with the missive.
The chalky old fellow read the letter and grew uneasy.
“See here, tell your ... mistress she’ll have to wait. I, too, have to wait very often.”
The baroness was furious at this reply.
“The coarse old brute! The vile beast! It’s all my fault for having bothered with the disgusting old duffer. Just wait till he comes. I’ll tell him what’s what.”
But Don Sergio did not show up, and the baroness, who surmised what had taken place, moved to a cheaper house in order to economize. Niña Chucha, Manuel and the three dogs were thus transferred to a third-floor apartment on the Calle del Ave María.
Here the idyll begun between the baroness and Horacio resumed its course, despite the fact that the latter, because of his Anglo-Saxon, phlegmatic temperament, or because of the low esteem in which he held women—a patrimony of the southern races—attached little importance to flirtations of this kind.
From time to time, in order to meet the expenses of the house, the baroness would sell or pawn a piece of furniture; but, with the disorder which reigned in that household, the money did not last long.