“You always interested me ... because you were so modest, and I recognized that modesty as being the kind that accompanies great ability, abilities that you yourself do not yet suspect the existence of in yourself. I like men who are good, men who have no false pride. So often, when I was alone, I amused myself imagining what a man like you might have become, had you lived in Europe ... and had you met the right woman to inspire you, and to advise you and encourage your awakening ambition....”
Moreno remained silent, looking at Elena with a kind of astonishment, as though the words she had just uttered had won from him the utmost he was capable of in the way of admiration. This wonderful woman had the same thoughts that came to him so often ... but he had never dared put his faith in them....
Elena sadly threw back her shoulders.
“But it is too late to talk of such things,” she went on in a tone of discouragement.
“You have a family to work for, and I ... I am a woman with neither illusions nor hopes, I am alone, I am poor ... and I do not know what is in store for me.”
The government clerk remained pensive, his eyebrows drawn together, as though mentally contemplating a vision thoroughly distasteful to him. What he saw was a little house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires; in its modest clean little rooms were a woman and some children ... his children, his wife ... and then rapidly the vision vanished like a puff of smoke, and Moreno recovered the air of assured self-satisfaction he had displayed on first arriving that afternoon.
“I, too,” he said, “was busy thinking about a great many things last night. I couldn’t sleep, and got up very late. That’s why I didn’t have time to find out about what had happened at the Rojas’ place.... One of the things I was thinking was that it might be a good idea for me to go to Europe to look up Pirovani’s daughter, and keep a closer watch over his property than I could do in Buenos Aires. Who knows? I might be able to increase his fortune considerably, if I attended strictly to business.... I am not vain enough to think that I have all the ability you attribute to me, marquesa; but it is true that I know a little arithmetic, and that I am methodical. I might be able to do at least as well as other men in business ... why not?”
A long pause followed, and finally Moreno plucked up the courage to stammer timidly,
“You might come with me to Europe, marquesa ... to advise me. For, in spite of the flattering opinion you have of me, I would be so ignorant there of the things I ought to know....”
Elena started, and then, with a proud gesture, repelled this suggestion.