His wife is not receiving to-day, but in English fashion there are a few friends who drop in for dinner, habitués of the house, beloved comrades of Don Rollo's with whom (for the Señora is the old Concha still) his wife flirts a little, chats a great deal, and gives the best advice in return for boundless admiration and delight in her beauty and wit.
"Dolóres," she says to a friend who has arrived and sits patiently folding her little hands on a sofa, "it was pretty of you to come in such a lovely gown—just to please those poor old bachelors. Here, Etienne, hold the baby, and be sure not to drop him, sir. There—what did I tell you? You have made him cry! Monster! Well, he shall be sent away, sweetest pet, that he shall! He is a buffalo of the marisma, a tiger of the jungle, an ogre out of a story book—that he is, sweetest! There, La Giralda, take the darling away! Oh, and give him—but stay—I too will come, else the little villain may howl till midnight."
She continues to talk quickly as she goes toward the door.
"What a voice—just like his father's when he is in the place of arms and the men do not please him! There—sweetest" (she goes behind the curtain), "there——!"
And, contented, the young man stills that parade voice of his into gentle murmurings like those of a bee within the bell of a flower.
Presently a tall young man comes striding in, in a plain uniform with the starred shoulder-straps of the highest rank. Behind him is a broad-chested, deep-bearded veteran, his chest blazing with decorations.
The younger man, whose hair gives promise of early threads of grey, enters with swift impetuosity, dashing a chance servitor out of the way and opening the inner door as if a gust of wind had come rioting through the corridors.
"Where is Concha?" he cries as soon as he enters.
"Here!" replies a voice, a little muffled, it is true, from a neighbouring room; "no, stay where you are! I shall be back in a moment."
"Ah, Etienne—John, how are you? Have they given you any breakfast? Etienne, any more loves? There are four pretty girls in the Plaza Villarasa. I saw them on the balcony as I rode through with the Sagunto regiment the other day——"