The horseman rode up to the window and shook hands with Moreno. With military abruptness, avoiding all preambles, he began,
“I wanted to talk to you a minute before tonight so you can get a letter off in today’s mail.... It’s about a present for the marquesa. Poor woman, in this desert of ours she has none of the things she’s accustomed to, and if you remember, a few weeks ago she happened to mention that she misses perfumes so much....”
The engineer took some papers out of a leather wallet, and gave them to Moreno.
“I clipped these out of some catalogues that the Galician fellow at the store gave me. Of course it took him a while to get them for me from Buenos Aires. I should have had them three days ago, so as to send the order by the other train. But, to come to the point.... You have a lot of friends in Buenos Aires, won’t you get one of them to buy these things for me? And take the money out of my pay for the month....”
Moreno with a nod, took the catalogue clippings.
“I hope Pirovani won’t get ahead of me in this matter,” Canterac went on. “The fellow is more insufferable every day.”
The captain had left him to return to his work at the Dam. Moreno neglected his novel a moment longer to examine the catalogue lists and prices; and as he did so his eyes grew round with amazement; in fact they became almost as round and blank as the shell-rimmed glasses covering them.
For the list marked was a long one; it contained not only perfumery, but all kinds of toilet articles. Evidently the Captain had plunged into the catalogue as though it were a newly discovered continent, appropriating everything he encountered.
“All this mounts up to more than a thousand pesos,” said the paymaster to himself. “And Canterac’s pay is only 800 pesos a month.”
Methodical and prudent as he was, a man of figures and accounts, he felt outraged at this lack of balance between income and expenditure. But after a little reflection he began to smile to himself. After all, this lavishness was easy to understand! The marquesa was so charming ... and she couldn’t be expected to live like an ordinary woman!