“All this would be pretty expensive in Europe,” exclaimed a greasy-faced Russian. “But here, with the difference in exchange!...”
The order-loving Moreno contemplated the increasing thirst of the guests with considerable anxiety. At the same time, with mysterious gestures, and words muttered in passing, he admonished the enthusiastic Friterini, urging him to be sparing and prudent.
“Provided Canterac’s pesos hold out!” he said to himself. “But it begins to look as though we wouldn’t have money enough to pay for it all.”
Meanwhile the Frenchman, with Elena on his arm, was walking under the trees, or stopping to point out the largest of them to his companion.
“This is scarcely the park of Versailles, bella marquesa,” he was saying, imitating the gallantry of past centuries. “But, however humble it may be, it represents the great interest that one man here takes in making himself agreeable to you....”
Pirovani, pretending to be absorbed in his thoughts, was following them from a moderate distance. He could not conceal how much this garden fête, conceived and executed by his rival, annoyed him. He had to acknowledge that he would never have been able to think of anything like this. It only proved what an advantage it was to have had an education....
As he advanced through the artificial park he tried, without being seen, to push with all his weight against the trees nearest him in the hope that they would fall over. But his evil desires were of no avail. All the trees stood firmly erect and immovable. That fool of a Moreno had done things well in so far as helping Canterac was concerned.
But the Italian’s hands turned cold, and all his blood seemed to rush to his heart when he saw the couple he was following disappear in an arbor of dense foliage at the far end of a tree-bordered avenue. This was Moreno’s “shrine of flowers.”
“Now the queen can sit on her throne,” said Canterac. And he pointed to a rustic bench which had a kind of canopy over it, made of garlands of foliage and paper flowers.
Excited by finding himself alone with the marquesa, the engineer began to talk in an impassioned manner of his love for her and of the sacrifices he was ready to make for her. He had often gone on in this way before, but never with such intensity. Stimulated by the success of his plans up to this point, he was nearly beside himself at the thought of having a prolonged tête à tête with Elena in the bower he had made for her.