She turned her head in order to look at the oysterman. He was occupied in the contemplation of a fat lady with grisled hair and abundant jewels, a lady escorted by her husband, who was looking with astonishment at the vendor's killing glances without being able to understand them.
The lady-killer was stroking his mustache affectedly, looking from time to time at his cloth suit in order to smooth out the wrinkles and brush off the specks of dust. He was a handsome pirate disguised as a gentleman. Upon noticing Freya's interest, he changed the course of his glances, poised his fine figure and replied to her questioning eyes with the smile of a bad angel, making her understand his discretion and skillfulness in ingratiating himself behind husbands and escorts.
"There he is!" cried Freya with peals of laughter. "I already have a new admirer!…"
The swarthy charmer was restrained by the scandalous publicity with which this lady was receiving his mysterious insinuations. Ferragut spoke of knocking the scamp down on his oyster shells with a good pair of blows.
"Now don't be ridiculous," she protested. "Poor man! Perhaps he has a wife and many children…. He is the father of a family and wants to take money home."
There was a long silence between the two. Ulysses appeared offended by the lightness and cruelty of his companion.
"Now don't you be cross," she said. "See here, my shark! Smile a bit. Show me your teeth…. The libations to the gods are to blame. Are you offended because I wished to compare you with that clown?… What if you are the only man that I appreciate at all!… Ulysses, I am speaking to you seriously,—with all the frankness that wine gives. I ought not to tell you so, but I admit it…. If I should ever love a man, that man would be you."
Ferragut instantly forgot all his irritation in order to listen to her and envelop her in the adoring light of his eyes. Freya averted her glance while speaking, not wishing to meet his eye, as though she were weighing what she was saying while her glance wandered over the widespread landscape.
Ulysses' origin was what interested her most. She who had traveled over almost the entire world, had trodden the soil of Spain only a few hours, when disembarking in Barcelona from the transatlantic liner which he had commanded. The Spaniards inspired her both with fear and attraction. A noble gravity reposed in the depths of their ardent hyperbole.
"You are an exaggerated being, a meridional who enlarges everything and lies about everything, believing all his own lies. But I am sure that if you should ever be really in love with me, without fine phrases or passionate fictions, your affection would be more sane and deep than that of other men…. My friend, the doctor, says that you are a crude people and that you have only simulated the nervousness, unbalanced behavior, and intrigues that accompany love in other civilized countries even to refinement."