The Casino was for Perico and Miranda, as for all the other idlers of the colony, house and home during the time they spent at the springs. The great edifice, taken as a whole, might be likened to a concert of voices, inviting to the enjoyment of the rapid and easy life of our age. The spacious peristyle, the principal faÇade with its broad roof, its private garden where exotic plants grow in graceful baskets, and its rich and fanciful ornamentation of dazzling whiteness; the tall columns of burnished porphyry that support the interior portion of the building; its luxurious arm-chairs and broad divans; the mischievous cupids (artistic symbol of the ephemeral passions that last during a two weeks’ course of the waters), that run around the cornice of the large ball-room or hover on the blue background of the broad panels of the theater; the profusion of gold, artistically disposed in touches, like points of light, or in long stripes, like sunbeams; the large window—everything, in short, contributes to give one the idea of an Athenian temple, improved and enriched with the benefits and pleasures of modern civilization. A glance at the southern faÇade of the Casino discovers at once the numen to whom worship and sacrifice are here paid, the nymph of the waters, gracefully inclining her urn, while from some rushes at her feet emerge two cupids, one of them supporting a shell, which receives in its hollow the sacred water that flows in a copious stream from the urn. The priests and flamens of the temple of the nymphs are the waiters of the Casino who, at a sign, a movement of the lips, hasten, swiftly and silently, to bring the desired article—cigars, newspapers, writing-materials, refreshments, even the waters, which they carry at a run, in a little tank, turned mouth downward over a plate, so that they may not lose their temperature or the gases which give them their value.

Miranda’s favorite resort was the reading-room, where were to be found various Spanish periodicals, including the organ of Colmenar, which he read with the air of a statesman. Perico was more frequently to be found in another apartment, gloomy as a cave, with hangings of a dirty gray, adorned with red fringe, in which a row of spotted guttapercha benches stood fronting a row of tables covered with the traditional melodramatic and much worn green cloth. As the out-going tide deposits on the shore fringe after fringe of seaweed, so on the backs of the red guttapercha benches had the heads and shoulders of the players deposited a series of layers of filth, signs which grew more marked in proportion as the benches receded and the play rose from harmless piquet to exciting ÉcartÉ, for the row began with social games and ended with games of chance. The benches at the entrance were clean in comparison with those at the far end of the room. This apartment, in which rites so unholy were practiced in honor of the nymph of the waters, had witnessed many deeds of prowess of Perico, which, from the resemblance they bore to others of the same order, do not deserve special mention. Still less worthy of description are the scenes, dear to the novelist, that succeeded one another at the gaming tables. Play at Vichy partakes, to some extent, of the hygienic refinement characteristic of the place, whose inhabitants take pleasure in saying that no one has ever blown his brains out in their town on account of the green cloth, as constantly happens at Monaco; so that the hall of the Casino does not lend itself to descriptions of the dramatic or soul-harrowing order. There the loser puts his hands into his pockets and walks out of the room, more or less disgusted according as he happens to be of the nervous or the lymphatic temperament, but satisfied that he has been fleeced in a perfectly legitimate manner, a fact which is guaranteed to him by the presence there of government officials and agents of the company of lessees with the purpose of preventing cheating, quarreling, or disturbances of a similar kind, proper only to low gambling houses and not at all in place in those Olympic regions in which the cards are dealt with gloved hands.

It is to be adverted that although Perico was one of those who most contributed, by the pomade on his hair and the friction of his shoulders, to grease and polish the backs of the guttapercha benches, he did not correspond to the traditional type of the gambler, as portrayed in pictures of a moral and edifying character. When he lost, it never occurred to him to tear his hair, blaspheme, or raise his clenched fists to Heaven. It is true, indeed, that he took every precaution which it was possible to take not to lose. Play is like war; fortune and chance are said to decide the victory in both; but the skillful strategist knows very well that a plan which is the result at once of insight and of reflection, which is at the same time analytic and synthetic, generally secures an easy triumph. In both cases, an error in calculation may lead to ruin, and in both, if it be true that the skillful generally vanquish, it is no less true that the daring at times sweep all before them and conquer in their turn. Perico possessed a profound knowledge of the science of play, and, in addition, carefully studied the character of his adversaries, a course which seldom fails to produce happy results. There are people who grow angry or confused in playing, and act according to the mood they chance to be in, so that it is easy to surprise and vanquish them. Perhaps the enigma called luck, chance, or happy inspiration is nothing but the superiority of the man who retains his judgment and his self-possession over other men who are mad with passion. In short, Perico, who, although impulsive and loquacious to excess, had a head cool as ice, understood so well the marches and counter-marches of the battle fought every day in the Casino, that after winning many small fortunes he succeeded in winning a large fortune in the shape of a good-sized bundle of thousand-franc notes, which he quietly put into his waistcoat pocket and then walked out of the hall with his accustomed air and bearing, leaving the loser to reflect on the transitoriness of all earthly possessions. This happened on the day following that on which LucÍa had manifested to Pilar so great an interest in the health of Artegui’s mother. Perico was not naturally parsimonious, at least not unless he needed money for his amusements, when he would economize a maravedi, and making a sign to Pilar, who was in the Salle des Dames, to walk with him outside on the roof, he said to her, giving her his arm:

“So that you may not be always saying that I did not buy you anything at Vichy, see, I am going to make you a present.”

“A present?” and Pilar opened wide her eyes.

“A present, yes. One would think that I had never made you a present before. Come, say what you want, say what you want.”

“But are you in earnest? How generous you are getting!” said the sick girl; “will you buy me anything I ask you?”

“Come to the shops and choose,” he said, leading the way.

Pilar hesitated long, like a child before a dish of various kinds of sweetmeats; at last she made choice of two diamonds, clear as two drops of water, for her ears, and a hand mirror, with a frame of chased gold, a novel and fanciful trinket worn hanging from the belt, a style of ornament which no one in Vichy but the Swede had yet been seen to wear. On returning home with her purchases, the sick girl’s eyes shone so brightly and her cheeks were so rosy that Perico said:

“You women are the very devil. One has only to give you a tambourine or a bell, a bell, to cure you of all your ailments. I laugh at drugs, I laugh at drugs. I wager you have no pain in the stomach, now.”

“Periquillo! You are a jewel! See, I am wild with joy, and if you would only—ah! say yes.”

“If I would only—Do you want me to buy you something else? No, child, enough for to-day.”

“No, nothing of the sort—but to-night—I should like to go to the concert to show the mirror; neither Luisa Natal nor either of the AmÉzegas has one like it, or even knows that such a thing is to be had in Vichy. They will open their eyes with astonishment. Come, Periquin, you will take me, won’t you. For once, come, say yes.”

LucÍa begged Pilar, almost on her knees, to give up the dangerous pleasure she longed for. It was precisely the most critical stage of her malady. Duhamel hoped that nature, aided by a regular way of life, would conquer in the struggle, and that perhaps a couple of weeks of determined self-denial on her part would decide the victory in her favor. But it was impossible to dissuade the sick girl from her purpose. She spent the day feverishly examining the contents of her wardrobe; when night came she went to the Casino, escorted by Miranda; she wore a dress which she had not before worn, thinking it too thin and summery—a gown of white gauze spotted with carnations of various colors; from her belt hung the mirror; in her ears sparkled the solitaires, and in her hair, placed with Spanish grace, was a bunch of carnations. Thus arrayed, and flushed with fever and gratified vanity, she looked almost handsome, notwithstanding her freckles and the emaciation of her features, worn by illness. She had, then, a great success at the Casino; it may be said that she shared the honors of the evening with the Swede, and with an eccentric English lord, of whom it was rumored that he had the floor of his stable covered with a Turkish carpet and his reception-room paved with stone. Happy and admired, to Pilar the Casino seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights, with its countless gas-lights, its perfumed atmosphere, through which floated the strains of the magnificent orchestra; its ball-room where the sportive cupids on the ceiling seemed to hover in a golden mist. Gimenez, the little Marquis of CaÑahejas, and Monsieur Anatole disputed with one another the pleasure of dancing with her. Miranda danced a rigadoon with her, and, to crown her happiness and triumph, the ArÉzegas kept casting furtive glances, during the evening, at the little mirror—a style of trinket like which there was but one other in the room, that which gleamed at the side of the Swede. It was, in short, one of those moments that stand alone in the life of a vain girl, when gratified pride gives rise to emotions so sweet as almost to be mistaken for feelings deeper and purer, that forever remain unknown to such natures. Pilar danced with each one of her partners as if he had been her favored lover, so brightly did her eyes sparkle, so happy did she seem. Perico could not but say to her, sotto voce:

“You are dancing, eh? We shall see what Duhamel will say to-morrow. It will be heavenly, heavenly. To-morrow I shall make my escape, my escape. To a certainty you will explode, you will explode like a firecracker.”

“Don’t imagine it. I feel so well!” she exclaimed, drinking a glass of iced water flavored with currant syrup which Monsieur Anatole, the Hispanomaniac had just brought her.

On the following morning, when LucÍa went to waken Pilar, she involuntarily started back when she saw her. The sick girl lay with one cheek buried in the pillows; her sleep was uneasy and broken; in her ears, colorless as wax, the solitaires still gleamed, their limpid purity contrasting with the ashen hue of the cheek and neck. There were black shadows under her eyes. Her tightly-drawn lips resembled two withered rose-leaves. The general effect was corpse-like. On the chairs were scattered various articles of clothing used the night before; the white satin shoes, heel upward, were at the foot of the bed; on the floor some carnations were lying, and the never-enough-to-be-admired mirror, the innocent cause of all this evil, rested on the night table. LucÍa softly touched the shoulder of the sleeping girl, who awoke with a start and raised herself on her elbow; her half-opened eyes were dull and glazed, like the eyes of a dead animal; a heavy, fetid odor was perceptible; the sick girl was bathed in perspiration.

She could not get up, for on placing her foot on the floor she was seized with a chill, her teeth chattered, an icy sweat bathed her limbs, and she was obliged to cover herself up again with the bed-clothes. She felt, in addition, a sharp and violent pain in her left side. She shook like a reed in the wind and all the coverings which were put over her were ineffectual in restoring warmth to her chilled body.

LucÍa rushed to the room of her husband, who, between sleeping and waking, was smoking a cigarette. The waters agreed with Miranda: the faded tones of his skin, under which the blood was beginning again to circulate and the adipose tissue to be renewed, were disappearing, giving place to that look of mature freshness which bestows a certain beauty on stout well-preserved women of middle-age. Such was the physical effect of the waters upon Miranda; their moral effect was a desire for rest and selfish ease, an inclination to fall into a regular way of living, such as is often observable in persons of mature years, and which makes them regard as an irreparable misfortune half-an-hour’s delay in dinner or bed-time. The ex-beau desired to lead an easy comfortable existence, to take care of his precious health, and, in short, to sustain the traditional reputation for respectability and importance of the Mirandas. LucÍa entered the room like a whirlwind, and pale and trembling said:

“Get up; go and see if you can find SeÑor Duhamel and bring him at once. Pilar is very ill.”

Miranda sat up in bed.

“Of course the crazy creature is ill. Why, she danced last night as if she were out of her senses! She was well-employed!”

LucÍa looked at her husband in astonishment.

“Go at once,” she said, “go at once! She has had a chill—she complains of a pain in her side, and she has almost lost her voice.”

Miranda rose grumbling.

“I don’t know what her brother is here for,” he muttered, drawing on his boots. “He might very well go.”

“Tell him so, you, if you wish,” said LucÍa, her eyes swimming in tears. “I cannot go into Gonzalvo’s room to waken him. In any case you were going to rise now to drink the waters.”

“It would be time enough for that in three quarters of an hour. One would suppose that girl was the only person here whose health is of any consequence. Other people, too, are sick and have to take care of themselves. To-day, precisely, I am feeling wretched.”

LucÍa had been in the habit of manifesting a deep interest in Miranda’s health, asking him every day those minute particulars which mothers are wont to ask their children—and which bore the indifferent; but on this occasion she turned her back on him and went to the kitchen where she asked the wife of the concierge for a cup of lime-leaf tea and carried it herself to Pilar.

Duhamel frowned when he saw the patient. What most displeased him was to learn that she had taken two or three iced drinks at the ball. Duhamel was a little old man with skin like parchment, in whose bright and searching eyes all the vitality of his body seemed to have concentrated itself. His hair and eyebrows were gray, but of his teeth, which were long and yellow as ivory, and which he showed when he smiled, which was often, not one was wanting.

In his movements he was quick and gliding as an eel. Having at one time gone to Brazil on a scientific expedition, he possessed a smattering of Brazilian Portuguese, which he persisted in trying to pass off for Spanish.

“Let the whole treatment, Ó tratamento, be stopped,” he said, addressing himself exclusively to LucÍa, although the sick girl’s brother was present, guided doubtless by that infallible instinct possessed by the physician and which enables him to distinguish at once the person most interested in his instructions and most capable of carrying them out: “The patient, a doente, has done wrong in disobeying my orders in this way.”

“But now, what is to be done?”

“We will try a strong counter-irritant; there is congestion of the lungs; we must try to dissipate it. Bon Dieu! to dance and take iced drinks! And now we have the sweats to fight against.”

This dialogue between the doctor and LucÍa took place at a sufficient distance from the sick girl’s bed to prevent her from hearing it. LucÍa informed herself minutely regarding all that concerned the nursing of the patient, the hours at which nourishment was to be given to her, and the precautions which it was necessary to observe. After she had applied to Pilar the remedies prescribed by the doctor, she set the room in order, moving about on tiptoe, half closed the shutters, and then installed herself at the bedside in a low sewing-chair. Pilar was very feverish and suffered greatly from thirst. At every moment LucÍa would put to her lips the glass of gum-water, previously warmed on the little stove. In the afternoon Duhamel came again and found that the counter-irritant had had the effect of restoring to some extent the sick girl’s voice, and rendering her breathing easier. The fever, however, was high, the perspiration having been checked. The pulmonary congestion lasted for eight days, and when, in obedience to Duhamel’s orders—as lying in bed increased the fever and debilitated her—Pilar rose, the girl looked like a specter; to the symptoms, bad enough in themselves, of anÆmia were now added others more alarming still. Her limbs no longer supported the weight of her clothing, which slipped down from them as if they had been the limbs of a badly stuffed doll. She herself was alarmed, and in one of those moments of clairvoyance which are apt to visit persons suffering from the dreadful disease which now held her in its clutches, she asked for the famous mirror, which LucÍa, in order not to vex her, gave her very unwillingly. When Pilar saw herself in the glass she recalled her image as she had seen it on the night of the ball, the carnations in her artistically arranged hair, her face beaming with happiness. The contrast between her face as she now saw it and as she had seen it a week ago, was so strong that Pilar threw the mirror with a quick movement on the ground. The glass was broken and the exquisitely chased frame dinted by the blow.

It was not long, however, before the flattering illusion which mercifully blinds the consumptive to his danger and smooths his path to the very portals of the tomb, again took possession of her. The symptoms of the disease were so marked that seeing them in another she would have regarded them as fatal; and yet Pilar, animated as ever, continued to lay out plans for the future and thought she was suffering only from an obstinate cold, which would eventually cure itself. She had a constant hacking cough, with viscous expectoration; the slightest increase of temperature excited profuse perspiration, and instead of her former capricious appetite she had now an intense loathing for food. In vain the wife of the concierge put in practice all her culinary arts, inventing a hundred dainty dishes. Pilar regarded them all alike with repugnance, especially such as were of a nutritious kind. There began now for both the friends a valetudinarian existence. LucÍa scarcely ever left Pilar, taking her out on the balcony to breathe the fresh air if the weather was fine, keeping her company in her room if it was bad, using all her efforts to amuse her and to make the hours seem less tedious. The sick girl now began to feel the impatience, the desire for change of scene, which generally seizes those affected by the disease from which she suffered. Vichy had become intolerable to her; the more so, as she saw that the season was now drawing to a close, that the Casino was fast becoming deserted, that the opera-troupe were about to depart, and the brilliant swallows of fashion to take flight for other regions. The AmÉzegas had come to bid her good-by, and to give her the last vexation of the season. If LucÍa had followed her own inclinations, she would have received them in the little parlor down-stairs, making some excuse for Pilar; but the latter persisted in her desire that they should come up to her room, and LucÍa was compelled to yield. The Cubans were triumphantly happy because they were going to Paris to make their purchases for the winter, and from thence to display their finery at the most fashionable entertainments in Madrid and in the Retiro, and they spoke with the lisp and with the affected airs habitual to them on such occasions.

“Yes, child, who could endure it here any longer—this place has grown so stupid—not a soul to be seen. Yes, Krauss has gone. She has a contract in Paris. She scored a triumph on the last night of ‘Mignon.’ Some of the hotels are closed already. As you may suppose the rope has followed the pail; when the Swede left, was it likely he was going to remain? He will follow her to Stockholm. Yes, indeed! but have you not heard? On the day of her departure he filled her carriage with flowers. A whole parlor carriage filled with gardenias and camellias; just think of it! He has spent a small fortune already in flowers. Luisa Natal?—why, where should she go but to Madrid? Ah! the countess will stop at Lourdes on her way—she intends to remain at least a week there. Yes, CaÑahejas is going on a visit to a castle belonging to some relations of Monsieur Anatole, where they will shoot until November. Gimenez? I don’t know, child; he is always engaged in some mysterious affair or other. They say that Laurent, the soprano of the company—that cross-eyed woman—I don’t believe a word of it—he is an incorrigible braggart——”

“And you, you remain here, eh?” added Amalia, joining her lisp to Lola’s. “How long, child? But you will die of ennui, here. This is a convent, now! Why, that is nothing—what signifies a cold? Cheer up. This winter the Puenteanchas will give some private theatricals—the Monteros told me so. The Torreplanas de Arganzon have already signified their intention of receiving on Thursdays. We shall have Patti in the Real, and GayarrÉ,—think of it! We have sent to secure a box in case we should not arrive in time.”

“I am going to order a couple of frocks from Worth—simple ones, as I am not married. One for skating—I dote upon skating! In the Casa de Campo last year—do you remember, Amalia?—that day——”

“That the king complimented you on your skating? Yes, I remember it, of course.”

And the voices of both sisters mingled in a concert of little laughs of gratified pride; both saw again in imagination the frozen lake, the trees covered with their embroidery of frost, the early morning mist, and the youthful figure of the king, his countenance pale with cold, with his effeminate frame, his easy and elegant manners, and his half-mischievous, half-courteous smile as he bent forward to compliment the skater on her skill.

The visit left Pilar more impatient, more feverish, more excited than ever. Pilar was desperate; at any cost she desired to leave Vichy, to fly away, to break from the dark prison of sickness and make her appearance once more, a brilliant butterfly, in the world of fashion. She fully believed herself able to do so; she did not doubt but that her strength was equal to it. No less impatient than herself were two other persons—Miranda and Perico. Perico, accustomed to live in perpetual divorce from himself, could not endure solitude, which compelled him to keep his own company; and as for Miranda, the period prescribed for his drinking the waters being now at an end and his health notably improved, he thought it was time to betake himself to winter quarters and enjoy in peace the result of the treatment. It annoyed him extremely to see that his wife, appointed by high decrees to nurse himself, should neglect, as she did, her providential mission, dedicating her days and nights to a stranger suffering from a malady painful to witness and perhaps contagious. Therefore, he suggested to LucÍa that they should take their departure, leaving the Gonzalvos to their fate, as those are left behind, in a shipwreck, for whom there is no room in the lifeboat. But contrary to all his expectations, he met with a vehement and obstinate resistance from LucÍa. She indemnified herself now, by giving free utterance to her feelings, for all she had hitherto concealed, even from herself.

“It would be necessary to have no heart—to have no heart!” she said. “Poor Pilar, she would be well off indeed with her brother, who does not know even how to arrange her pillows, for a nurse. What would become of her? I cannot bear even to think of it.”

“She could send for a sister of charity—she would not be the first who has done so,” answered Miranda roughly.

“How cruel—poor girl! To talk like that is even worse than leaving her to die alone like a dog.”

“Well, as for her, confound me if she would have stayed behind for you or for me, or for the angel Gabriel himself. And what obligation are we under to nurse her? One would think——”

“Do you not say that you are Gonzalvo’s friend?” said LucÍa, riveting her gaze on her husband.

“His friend, yes, in a social way. What do you know about those things? We are friends as hundreds of other people are friends.”

“Then why do we live in the same house with the Gonzalvos. They were not my friends; but now I have come to like her, and the idea of going away and leaving her so ill——”

“Good Heavens! has she not her father, her aunt, her brother? Let them come, in the devil’s name, to take care of her. What have we to do with the matter? If your vocation was to be a sister of charity, you should have said so before, and not have got married, my child. Your duty now is to see to your husband and your house, and nothing more.”

“Well,” said LucÍa, raising her face, in which the rounded and evanescent contours of youth were beginning to lose themselves in the firmer outlines of early womanhood: “I will go, if you command me; but I am none the less convinced that it is a wicked action to abandon a friend in this way in her dying moments.”

She left the room. In her mind there was beginning to germinate a singular conception of marital authority; she thought her husband had a perfect, incontestable and manifest right to forbid her every species of enjoyment or happiness, but that she was free to suffer; and that to forbid her to suffer, to forbid her to devote herself, as she wished to do, to the care of the sick girl, was cruel tyranny. These strange notions are common enough with the unhappy, who often take refuge in suffering as in a sanctuary, in order to avail themselves of the immunity it confers.

The question, however, settled itself better than LucÍa could have anticipated, for that very afternoon Perico took part in it, and decided it with his accustomed effrontery.

“Good-by, my dear boy,” he said, entering Miranda’s room, dressed in traveling attire, wearing cloth gaiters and a felt cap, and carrying a double-barreled fowling-piece slung across his shoulder.

And as Miranda looked at him in amazement:

“I have made up my mind,” he said. “Vichy is too stupid, and as Anatole makes a point of it——”

“You are going to Auvergne?”

“To the Castle of Ceyssat, of Ceyssat. It seems there are hares and deer there by the hundred, by the hundred—and one can have a good time at the castle; there is a large party—eighteen guests.”

Miranda put as much energy as he could summon into his voice and gestures, and said to the enthusiastic sportsman:

“But LucÍa and I had decided on returning to Spain in two or three days at the latest, and as Pilar is—in delicate health—your presence here is indispensable.”

“Go to the deuce, to the deuce!” exclaimed Perico, faithful to his rule of always speaking his mind freely. “Can’t you wait a fortnight to oblige me? What are you going to do in Spain? To bury yourself in Leon, and vegetate there, vegetate there. Here you are in the honeymoon, the honeymoon. Not a word, not a word. I will leave my sister with you. I know she will be well taken care of, well taken care of. Good-by; I must catch the train. I will bring you back a deer’s head for a cane-rack.

“But listen; see here——”

Perico was already at the door. Miranda called to him from the window; but the young man turned round smiling, and waving him an adieu, hurried on in the direction of the station. And so it was that in this struggle between two selfish natures, the most daring, if not the bravest or the noblest, conquered.

Miranda was in a diabolical humor when Duhamel came to afford him some slight consolation, saying that the sick girl during the last few days had shown signs of improvement and that she ought to avail herself of them to return to Spain in search of a milder climate, adding, in his broken French-Portuguese that, as he intended, like most of the other consulting physicians of Vichy, to return soon to Paris, they might travel together, and in this way he would be able to see how the motion of the train agreed with the patient, and to determine whether she needed to rest or whether she could bear the journey to Spain without further delay. The doctor’s advice appeared to every one to be very judicious and LucÍa wrote a letter to Perico, at the dictation of Pilar, charging him to return within a fortnight, as that was the date fixed upon by Duhamel to close his office at Vichy. The new arrangement moderated in some slight degree the ill-humor of Miranda, consoled LucÍa, and rejoiced the patient, who longed, above all things, to return to Madrid.

It was true; the very frailty of Pilar’s constitution, opposing less resistance to the disease, retarded the inevitable termination of her sufferings; and as the hurricane that uproots oaks only bends the reed, so was the progress of the malady which had declared itself less violent in this delicate frame than it would have been in a more vigorous one. In a portion of one of the lungs, tubercles were present, and those terrible breaches had already been made in it which doctors call cavities; but the other lung was still unaffected. It is with the lungs, however, as it is with fruit—a very brief space of time is sufficient to infect a sound one if the one beside it be decayed. At all events, the momentary improvement in Pilar was so marked as to allow of her taking a short walk every morning, leaning on LucÍa’s arm; and her disinclination for food was now not so obstinate as before.