The table had been set in that wonderful gallery of the ancient palace of the Dukes of Castro Duro, which looked out over the garden. The early autumn weather was of enchanting softness and sweetness.

CÆsar and Alzugaray were very smart and elegant, with creases in their trousers: CÆsar dressed in black, with the ceremonious aspect that suits a grave man; Alzugaray in a light suit with a coloured handkerchief in his breast pocket.

“I think we are ‘gentlemen’ today,” said CÆsar.

“It seems so to me.”

They entered the house and were ushered into the drawing-room. The majority of the guests were already there; the proper introductions and bows took place. CÆsar stayed in the group of men, who remained standing, and Alzugaray went over to enter the sphere of Don Calixto’s wife and the judge’s wife.

The judge, from the first moment, treated CÆsar like a man of importance, and began to call him Don CÆsar every moment, and to find everything he said, good.

In the ladies’ group there was an old priest, a tall, big, deaf man, a great friend of the family, named Don RamÓn.

The judge’s wife told Alzugaray that this Don RamÓn was a simpleton.

He was the pastor of a very rich hermitage nearby, the hermitage of la Vega, and he had spent all the money he had got by an inheritance, in fixing up the church.

The poor man was childlike and sweet. He said various times that he had many cloaks for the Virgin in the sacristy of his church, and that he wished they could be given to poor parishes, because two or three were enough in his.

AMPARITO

While they were talking an automobile horn was heard, and a little later Don Calixto’s niece entered the drawing-room.

This was Amparito, the flat-faced girl with black eyes, of whom CÆsar had spoken to Alzugaray. Her father accompanied her.

The priest patted the girl’s cheeks.

Her father was a clumsy man, red, sunburned, with the face of a contractor or a miner.

The girl took off her cap and the veil she wore in the automobile, and seated herself between Don Calixto’s daughters. Alzugaray looked her over. Amparito really was attractive; she had a short nose, bright black eyes, red lips too thick, white teeth, and smooth cheeks. She wore her hair down, in ringlets; but in spite of her infantile get-up, one saw that she was already a woman.

“CÆsar is right; this is quite a lively girl,” murmured Alzugaray.

The mayor’s son now arrived, and his sister. He was an insignificant little gentleman, mild and courteous; he had studied law at Salamanca, and it seemed that he had certain intentions about Don Calixto’s second daughter.

All the guests being assembled, the master of the house said that, since nobody was missing and it was time, they might pass into the gallery, where the table was set.

At one end the lady of the house seated herself, having the priest on one side and the judge on the other; at the other end, Don Calixto, between the judge’s wife and the mayor’s daughter. CÆsar had a seat assigned between Don Calixto’s elder daughter and Amparito, and Alzugaray one between the second daughter and the judge’s girl.

A few moments before they sat down, Amparito went running out of the gallery into the garden. “Where has that child gone?” asked Don Calixto’s wife.

“Something or other has occurred to her,” said Amparito’s father, laughing.

The girl reappeared a little later with a number of yellow and red chrysanthemums in her hand.

She gave red ones to the mayor’s daughter and to her cousins, who were all three brunettes, and a yellow one to the judge’s daughter, who was blond. Then she proceeded to the men.

“This one is for you,” to the mayor’s son; “this one for you,” and she gave Alzugaray a yellow one; “this one for you,” and she gave CÆsar a red one; “and this one for me,” and she put a similar flower in her bosom.

“And the rest of us?” asked Don Calixto.

“I don’t give you chrysanthemums, because your wives would be jealous,” replied Amparito.

“Man, man!” exclaimed the judge; “how does it strike you, Don Calixto? That these little girls know the human heart pretty well?”

“These children do not know how to appreciate our merits,” said Don Calixto.

“Oh, yes; your merits are for your wives,” replied Amparito.

“I must inform you that my friend CÆsar is married, too,” said Alzugaray, laughing.

“Pshaw!” she exclaimed, smiling and showing her white, strong teeth. “He hasn’t the face of a married man.”

“Yes, he has got the face of a married man. Look at him hard.”

“Very well; as his wife isn’t here, she won’t quarrel with me.”

Alzugaray examined this girl. She had great vivacity; any idea that occurred to her was reflected in her face in a manner so lively and charming, that she was an interesting spectacle to watch.

At first the conversation was of a languid and weary character; Don Calixto, the judge, and CÆsar started in to exchange political reflexions of crass vulgarity. CÆsar was gallantly attentive to the wants of Don Calixto’s elder daughter, and less gallantly so to his other neighbour Amparito; the mayor’s son, despite the fact that his official mission was to court one of Don Calixto’s girls, looked more at Amparito than at his intended, and Alzugaray listened smilingly to the young person’s sallies.

Toward the middle of the meal the conversation grew brisker; the judge recounted, with much art, a mysterious crime that had occurred in a town in Andalusia among farming people, and he succeeded in keeping them all hanging to his lips.

At the end of the recital, the conversation became general; the younger element talked together, and CÆsar made comments about what the judge had told them, and defended the most immoral and absurd conclusions, as though they were Conservative ideas.

CÆsar’s observations were discussed by the men, and the judge and Don Calixto agreed that CÆsar was a man of real talent, who would play a great role in Congress.

“Please give me a little wine,” said Amparito, holding her glass to Alzugaray; “your friend pays no attention to me; I have asked him for some wine twice, and nothing doing.”

CÆsar acted as if he hadn’t heard and kept on talking.

Amparito took the glass, wet her lips in it, and looked at Alzugaray maliciously.

After eating and having coffee, as the two married ladies and the girls were inert from so long a meal, they arose, and Alzugaray, the mayor’s son, and Amparito’s father followed them. Don Calixto, the judge, and CÆsar remained at table. The priest had gone to sleep.

A bottle of chartreuse was brought, and they started in drinking and smoking.

CÆsar’s throat grew dry and he became nauseated from drinking, smoking, and talking.

At five the judge took his leave, because he had to glance in at court; Don Calixto wanted to take his nap, and after he had escorted CÆsar to the garden, he went away. The two married ladies were alone, because the young people had gone with Amparito’s father on an excursion to the Devil’s Threshold, a defile where the river flows between some red precipitous rocks full of clefts.

CÆsar joined the two ladies, and kept up a monotonous, dreary conversation about the ways of the great city.

At twilight all the excursionists came back from their jaunt. One of the young ladies played something very noisy on the piano, and the judge’s daughter was besought to recite one of Campoamor’s poems.

“It is a very pretty thing,” said the judge’s wife, “a girl who laments because her lover abandons her.”

“Given the customs of Spain, as they are, the girl would be in a house of prostitution,” said CÆsar in a low tone, ironically.

“Shut up,” replied Alzugaray.

The girl recited the poem, and CÆsar asked Alzugaray sarcastically if those verses were by the girl’s father, because they sounded to him like the verses of a notary or a judge of the Court of First Instance.

Then somebody suggested that they should have supper there.

CÆsar noticed that this plan did not appeal to the mistress of the house, and he said:

“One should be moderate in all things. I am going home to bed.”

After this somewhat pedantic phrase, which to Don Calixto seemed a pearl, CÆsar took leave of his new acquaintances with a great deal of ceremony and coolness. Alzugaray said he would remain a while longer.

When CÆsar was bowing to Amparito, she asked him jokingly:

“Is it your wife that keeps you in such good habits?”

“My wife!” exclaimed CÆsar, surprised.

“Didn’t your friend say...”

“Ah! Yes, it is she who makes me have such good habits.”

This said, he left the drawing-room and went quickly down the stairs. The cool night air made him shiver, and he went with a heavy, aching head to his hotel, and got to bed. He slept very profoundly, but not for more than an hour, and woke up sweaty and thirsty. His headache was gone. It was not yet past eleven. He lighted the light, and sitting up in bed, set to thinking over the probabilities of success in his undertaking.

Meanwhile he stared at the red chrysanthemum which was in the button-hole of his coat, and remembered Amparito.

“That child is a prodigy of coquetry and bad bringing-up,” he thought with vexation; “these emancipated small town young ladies are more unattractive than any others. I prefer Don Calixto’s daughter, who at least is naively and unobjectionably stupid. But this other one is unsupportable.”

Without knowing why, he felt more antipathy for the girl than was natural under the circumstances. He did not like to admit it to himself; but he felt the hostility which is produced in strong, self-willed characters by the presence of another person with a strong character proposing to exert itself.

THE TWO FRIENDS’ COMMENTS

CÆsar was thinking over the details of the visit, when Alzugaray came home, and seeing a light in CÆsar’s room, went in there. Alzugaray was quite lively. The two friends passed the persons met that day in ironic review, and in general they were agreed about everything, except about valuing Amparito’s character.

CÆsar found her distasteful, pert and impertinent; to his friend, on the contrary, she had seemed very attractive, very amiable and very clever.

“To me,” said CÆsar, “she appears one of these small town lasses who have a flirtation with a student, then with a captain, and finally marry some rich brute, and get fat, and turn into old sows, and grow moustaches.”

“In that I think you are fundamentally unjust,” said Alzugaray. “Amparito is not a small town lass, for she lives in Madrid almost all year. Besides, that makes no difference; what I have not observed is her committing any folly or impertinence.” “Dear man, it all depends on how you look at it. To me her conduct seemed bad, to you it seems all right.”

“You are an extremist, for I can assure you that you were actually rude to her.”

“Actually rude, I don’t think; but I admit that I was cool and not very amiable.”

“And why were you?”

“First, because it is politic of me, since Don Calixto’s family do not care for Amparito; and secondly, because the little creature didn’t please me, either.”

“And why didn’t she please you? For no reason at all?”

“I am not partial to the platyrrhine races.”

“What nonsense! And you wish to look at things clearly! A man that judges people by their noses!”

“It seems to you little to go on? A brunette girl, brachicephalic and rather platyrrhine.... There is no more to say.”

“And if she had been blond, dolichocephalic, and long-nosed, she would have seemed all right to you.”

“Her ethnic type would have seemed all right.”

“Let’s not discuss it. What’s the use? But I feel that you are arbitrary to an extreme.”

“If she knew of our discussion, the young thing couldn’t complain, because if she has had a systematic detractor in me, she has found an enthusiastic defender in you.”

“Yes, dear man; it is only at such long intervals that I see a person with ingenuousness and enthusiasm, that when I do meet one, I get a real joy from it.”

“You are a sentimentalist.”

“That’s true; and you have become an inquisitor.”

“Most certainly. I believe we agree on that and on all the rest.”

“I think so. All right. Good-bye!” said Alzugaray, ill-humouredly.

“Salutations!” replied CÆsar.