Cotoner was disconcerted by these questions, and answered with some embarrassment. What an odd thing! Josephina was very good—an angel; he always remembered her with gratitude. He had wept for her as for a mother, though she might almost have been his daughter. She had always been very considerate and thoughtful of the poor Bohemian.
"Not that," interrupted the master. "I want to know if you thought she was beautiful, if she really was beautiful."
"Why, man, yes," said Cotoner resolutely. "She was beautiful or, rather, attractive. At the end she seemed a bit changed. Her illness! But all in all, an angel."
And the master, calmed by these words, stood looking at his own works.
"Yes, she was very beautiful," he said slowly, without turning his eyes from the canvases. "Now I recognize it; now I see her better. It's strange, Pepe. It seems as if I have found Josephina to-day after a long journey. I had forgotten her; I was no longer certain what her face was like."
There was another long pause, and once more the master began to ply his friend with anxious questions.
"Did she love me? Do you think she really loved me? Was it love that made her sometimes act so—strangely?"
This time Cotoner did not hesitate as he had at the former questions.
"Love you? Wildly, Mariano. As no man has been loved in this world. All that there was between you was jealousy—too much affection. I know it better than anyone else; old friends, like me, who go in and out of the house just like old dogs, are treated with intimacy and hear things the husband does not know. Believe me, Mariano, no one will ever love you as she did. Her sulky words were only passing clouds. I am sure you no longer remember them. What did not pass was the other, the love she bore you. I am positive; you know that she told me everything, that I was the only person she could tolerate toward the end."
Renovales seemed to thank his friend for these words with a glance of joy.