"Bòna nit!" called Febrer in greeting.
They responded only with a careless grunt. The low-toned conversations ceased, and a painful and hostile silence seemed to settle around each man.
Jaime leaned against a pillar of the porch, his head held high, his bearing arrogant, his figure standing erect against the horizon, and it seemed as if he could feel the hostile eyes fixed on him under cover of the darkness.
He felt a certain emotion, but it was not fear. He almost forgot the enemies who surrounded him. He was thinking uneasily of Margalida. He experienced the thrill of the enamored man when he divines the proximity of the beloved woman and is in doubt as to his fate, fearing and at the same time desiring her approach. Certain memories of the past returned, causing him to smile. What would Mary Gordon say if she could see him surrounded by this rustic crowd, tremulous and vacillating as he thought of the proximity of a peasant girl? How his women friends in Madrid and in Paris would laugh if they should come upon him engaged in this rustic project, ready to take life over the conquest of a woman almost on a level with their servants!
A door opened, outlining in its rectangle of ruddy light the silhouette of Pèp.
"Come in, men!" he said, like a patriarch who understands the desires of youth and laughs good-naturedly at them.
The young men entered one after the other, greeting Señor Pèp and his family, taking their seats on benches or chairs like schoolboys.
As the peasant of Can Mallorquí recognized the señor he started in surprise. Don Jaime there, waiting like the others, like an ordinary suitor, without venturing to enter this house, which was his own! Febrer replied with a shrug of the shoulders. He preferred to do as did the others. He imagined that thus it would be easier to accomplish his purpose. He did not wish to have his former condition recalled—he was a suitor, nothing more.
Pèp forced him to sit beside him, and tried to entertain him with conversation, but Febrer did not take his eyes off Almond Blossom, who, faithful to the ritual of such occasions, was seated in a chair in the center of the room, receiving the admiration of her suitors with the demeanor of a timid queen.
One after another took his place beside Margalida, who responded to their words in a low voice. She pretended not to see Don Jaime; she almost turned her back upon him. The suitors, awaiting their turns, were silent, not keeping up the merry chattering with which they had whiled away the time on other nights. Gloom seemed to weigh upon them, compelling them to silence, with lowered gaze and compressed lips, as if a dead man were lying in the adjoining room. It was the presence of the stranger, the intruder, foreign to their class and to their customs. Accursed Majorcan!