“Idem, ‘Nymphs and Undines’.”
“Six dozen boxes of ‘Moonlight Soap’”....
The bewildered foreman went on with the remaining pages of the thick packet. He was beginning to understand; but the more he understood, the greater was his astonishment. Was it for this that he was being sent to Buenos Aires with orders to return at once?...
“Holy smoke!” he muttered, “this can’t all be for one female! There’s enough here for the Grand Turk’s harem!”
But, as the prospect of a trip to Buenos Aires pleased him, even though he would be able to remain there only a few hours, he cheerfully mounted his horse, and galloped off hot-foot to the station.
Of all the marquesa’s nightly callers, the calmest, to judge by appearance, was Moreno. As his work kept him busy only about one day a week, he spent the rest of the time reading in the window of the frame house where he had set up his office. He was a greedy and insatiable reader, devouring two and sometimes three novels daily. His passion for novels of all kinds was one of long standing; it had grown worse in the many hours of solitude he spent at la Presa. When everybody else went away to work in the morning, leaving him alone in his rustic office, he had no distraction of any other kind.
It was after the arrival of the Torre Biancas that his literary preferences, up to that time not clearly formulated, took definite shape. He determined henceforth to read nothing but those tales the scene of which was the so-called world of fashion, with heroes and heroines who were personages of supposedly high society. Moreover, now that he was rubbing elbows with some of the most distinguished representatives of Parisian high-life, he could judge of whether these novels were true descriptions of the subject they attempted to treat, or not.
At times he would stop reading and look up at the ceiling with an ecstatic expression, while a desire whispered in his brain,
“Oh, to be the hero of such a story! Oh, to be loved by a woman of high society!”
One afternoon when Moreno was least expecting him Canterac appeared at his door on horseback. As a rule he was at that time of day always at the dam. Something unusual must have happened ... the captain would not be likely otherwise to come and see him.