WHEN we arrived at the house, night had already fallen. The family was assembled in the dining-room and the table set. Isabelita dined at her cousin's, and Retamoso and DoÑa Clara were getting ready to leave without their daughter. Sabas and Castell dined there also. We were joyously welcomed, and all, except perhaps Cristina, attacked me with questions concerning the impression that the country-place had made upon me. I showed myself enthusiastic, not merely for courtesy, but because I really was so. I enlarged heartily upon the enchanting situation, the taste and care with which the place was laid out, the elegance of the Cristina pavilion (I believe that I insisted too much on this point), and I finished by saying that I should not find it unpleasant to spend all my life there.

"In the Cristina pavilion?" asked Castell, with his ironical smile.

"Why not?" I responded boldly, casting a quick look at MartÍ's wife. She seemed to be thinking of something else at this moment, but I divined, none the less, that she did not lose a word of what I said.

"Then it's your taste to live caged like a canary. I also should like very well to live in that way, but on condition that I should be taken care of by a hand chosen by myself."

Saying this, he also looked out of the corner of his eye at Cristina, who kept her face turned the other way, and looked terribly dignified.

"But I, who am not a sybarite, make no condition whatever," I returned, laughing.

MartÍ slapped his friend several times upon the shoulder affectionately.

"As if we did not all know you, you old rascal! You would live in the way you are talking about a fortnight perhaps. At the end of that time you would be so bored with your cage, with lovely hands, and canary seed that you would throw it all over."

Castell protested against this judgment, declaring that fickleness in love depends not so much upon the temperament and its changes as upon the vague but pressing necessity that we all feel to seek for the being who can respond to our inmost sentiments, our most intimate aspirations, our secret longings; or, to speak in more prosaic words, although less clear also, those that adapt themselves exactly to our physical and moral individuality.

"I have not found—like you," he concluded daringly, "among so many women, the one who meets all the necessities of my being, many of them unimportant perhaps, but none the less existent. If, like you, or before you" (he uttered these words in a peculiar manner), "I had chanced upon her, then certainly my career of gallantry had ended, and you would have had no cause to call me, as now, an old rascal."

His attitude, his accents, and the furtive glances that the rich ship-owner cast from time to time upon Cristina while he was talking, confirmed me in the suspicion that I had conceived, whereof I have not before had occasion to speak, that this gentleman was paying court to the wife of his intimate friend and associate.

The effect of this dawning suspicion upon me was deplorable. I already hated my rival; now to myself I called him false friend, traitor, double-faced! But at the same time a voice cried out in my conscience that I, though a new friend, was not perceptibly better. This voice distressed me indescribably.

The talk went on, and Castell found occasion to say all he chose to Cristina, as if nobody but herself could hear. His well-chosen words admirably fitted the gestures, quick and speaking, wherewith he emphasized them. Cristina talked with her mother, but by her evident agitation and by the cloud of vexation which darkened her face I guessed that she was listening to what Castell said, and that it was not to her liking. In that moment, with a frown upon her forehead and a proud expression in her eyes, she seemed to me more adorable than ever.

Retamoso, with his hat already on his head, came up to Castell, and bending as if to speak in his ear, but in reality talking loud enough to be heard by his wife, said in his attractive Galician accent:

"SeÑor Castell, you are in the right—like a saint! The question hits the mark, hits the mark. If I had not had such good judgment in choosing a companion, what would have become of me, poor fellow! What a darling!—eh? What a treasure! Ssh! silence, keep the secret for the present, but I wouldn't have had two pesetas. Silence, ssh!"

And arching his eyebrows and making up faces expressive of admiration and restrained bliss, he moved away, shuffling his feet. His beloved better half, who had heard perfectly well, gave him a sidewise look which was not shining with gratitude, and turning up her hawk's nose, she said good-night to us with imposing severity.

We were now all standing up and preparing to seat ourselves at the table. MartÍ, observing that his piece of bread was a little broken, exclaimed jestingly:

"Aha, I think I find here the footprints of my little mouse, don't I, Cristina?"

She smiled assent.

"I suppose I'll be banished for picking at your bread, some day."

Then, as MartÍ turned to talk with Castell, I went up to the table carelessly and, pretending something else, contrived to get a morsel of the bread that Cristina had picked at, and ate it with inexplicable pleasure. This did not escape her, and I noticed that her face took on a slightly annoyed expression.

"Come, come to dinner, and everyone to his place!" she cried, with a pretty grimace of vexation.

I obeyed humbly, and seated myself in my accustomed place. The dinner was a gay one.

MartÍ was talkative and full of fun. As if he had not until then made enough of the beauties of his estate at CabaÑal, he enlarged upon them with an enthusiasm that I had communicated to him on our walk. He ended by proposing that we should go there afternoons for picnics, since circumstances hindered the moving out altogether. It is needless to say with what delight I heard this proposition. Cristina welcomed it with pleasure, and also the others at the table. Sabas remarked, with his habitual gravity, that perhaps he should not be able to go every day.

"No; we know already that we need not count upon you. It would not do, would it—to throw over all business in the Plaza de la Reina and the CafÉ del Siglo?" said his sister, laughing.

"It isn't that, my girl!" exclaimed the elegant creature, piqued. "You know that I am not particularly fond of rural amusements."

"Yes, yes, I know that you are one of the citified, and cannot breathe except in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke."

DoÑa Amparo hastened, as always, to the rescue of her son.

"It will please me very much if Sabas does not go, for picnics always disagree with his stomach."

"What would it matter to Cristina if I had to stay shut up?" exclaimed the critic with an affectation of bitterness.

"Poor little thing! You get on admirably on late suppers at the club, with olives and champagne."

MartÍ intervened and cut off the dispute between them, seeing that DoÑa Amparo was already making ready to faint away. Everyone has his own preferences in the matter of amusements and it was folly to try to impose our own upon others. "Everybody has a right to be happy in his own way," and if Sabas found himself happier under a roof than under the open sky, he had no wish to disturb him.

"All that I beg," he ended by saying, "is, that although he is not to be of the party, that he will let Matilde and the children come with us."

Sabas generously granted this petition, and all friction seemed to be ended; but Cristina, who still wished to tease him a little, said with a mischievous smile:

"Of course we understand that this means the afternoons when she has no buttons to sew on."

"Cristina, Cristina!" cried MartÍ, half vexed, half laughing.

We all did all we could to restrain our laughter. Sabas shrugged his shoulders with apparent disdain, but remained surly the rest of the evening.

The next day and the days thereafter, without his honorable company but with that of Matilde and the eldest of his children, we made our excursions to CabaÑal.

MartÍ and Castell's carriages took us thither directly after breakfast, and brought us to the city at sunset. This time was spent chatting on the upper balcony of the summer-house while the ladies embroidered or sewed, or we went out into the park, where we played like children with balls or hoops.

Sometimes we left the place and ran about the village or went down on the beach, where we were greatly entertained by watching the fishing boats coming in; at other times we directed our footsteps into the country, visited some of the cottages, usually that of a certain Tonet, an old servant of MartÍ's, who owned the little farm where he lived. There we often rested, and his wife welcomed us with chocolates or peanuts or served us some other refreshment.

But the important business of the afternoon was the picnic, or rather its preparation. For it interested us that the picnic was spread and eaten in the open air. We carried the alcohol stove and the rest of the things to some distant and shady place in the park. The ladies put on their aprons; the gentlemen, in shirt-sleeves, made chocolate or coffee, or fried fish that we had just bought on the beach, and passed a happy time. How happy I was when the party gave me the task of stewing up some sailor's dish, and I went about among my scullions and scullionesses with the stewpan in my hands, despotically giving them exact orders and sometimes—who would believe it?—going so far as to forget that I was in love!

Yet I was more and more in love all the time; there is no doubt about that. Neither when I said to Cristina in an imperious tone, "Bring me the salt!" nor, when I reproved her sharply for cutting the fish up into too small pieces, did it even enter my imagination that a more perfect creature could ever have existed under the sun. In the country the supercilious severity that I had often remarked in her disappeared. Her mood was gay, changeful, lively, and she invented a thousand tricks to make us laugh, while from her lips witticisms flowed continuously. She was the soul of our excursions, the salt that seasoned them.

I could not keep my eyes away from her. I listened to her and stared at her like an idiot. Sometimes, though not often, she made me feel that I was carrying water in a sieve. For example, one afternoon, standing in the summer-house, she showed us a thimble that she had bought. Everybody examined it, and I also after the others, then I contrived to keep it without being noticed. A good while passed; nothing more was said about the thimble. But when we left the mirador to go to our picnic she crossed in front of me and said without looking at me:

"Put the thimble in this little basket."

It was of no use to be cunning and crafty with her. She saw everything; she observed everything.

Another afternoon, when her sister-in-law Matilde was playing on the piano and she standing turning the leaves of her music, I stole up silently from behind. Pretending to find myself enraptured by the music and looking closely at its sheets, I devoured with my eyes her alabaster neck and the fine, soft hair, there where the black locks of her head seemed to die away and be lost like exquisite music that melts in pianissimo. Well, then as if she had eyes for seeing what was behind her, she raised her hand to the neck of her dress and pulled it up with a gesture of impatience. It was an admonition and a reprimand. But in spite of her dumb rebuffs and reproofs and although she used seldom to look at me, I felt myself happy beside her. And this was because in these rebuffs and in the sternness of her countenance I found no distaste for myself, nor desire to mortify me. Everything emanated from a noble, if exaggerated, sentiment of dignity, without counting the intense affection that she professed for her husband, of which she constantly gave clear proof. Nor in this either was she unworthy the exquisite delicacy of her sentiments. Instead of showing herself tender and submissive towards him as so many women would have done in her case, she shunned showing any fondness in my presence and, whenever it was possible, avoided the caresses that he would have given her. Sometimes he laughingly asked her the reason for such severity, but she remained inflexible.

Of her sense of justice and the instinct that inspired it she gave witness more than once, although it was always tacit. I had gone to the house one morning. There was no one in the dining-room but herself and her mother. She happened to ask for a glass of water. I took it upon myself to anticipate the servant, went to the sideboard, took a goblet and a little tray, and was about to pour out the water and serve her when she interrupted me dryly:

"No, let it be. I am not thirsty now; it was a whim."

I was very much crestfallen, and even more saddened than humiliated. I cut short my visit and retired. That afternoon I stayed at the fonda and did not go to CabaÑal as usual.

At night I went to the house when they were finishing supper, entered with a stern countenance, and did not try to glance at her. But I saw plainly that she looked at me, and I wished her to keep on until I saw a humble expression on her face.

In a few moments she addressed me with unusual amiability, seeking to make amends. I stood my ground rigidly. Then she said in a clear voice and with a gracious smile that I can never forget:

"Captain Ribot, will you do me the favor to pour a little water into one of those goblets and bring it to me?"

I served her, smiling. She smiled a little too before drinking it, and my resentment was melted like ice in the warmth of that smile.

Castell was always one of the party on our excursions to CabaÑal. Sometimes, though rarely, he drove out alone in one of his traps.

I no longer doubted that he paid court to Cristina and had also observed the love that I felt for her. But he owed it to his immeasurable pride not to seem to notice a rival so little formidable; I could not see the slightest change in him. He continued to treat me with the same refined courtesy, not exempt from patronage, and—why should I not say it?—with also a sort of benevolent compassion. It is true that Castell extended this compassion towards all created beings, and I think I should not be wrong in affirming that it went beyond our planet and diffused itself among other and distant stars. As a general rule, he listened to nobody but himself; but at times, if he were in the humor, he would invite us to express our opinions, making us talk with the complacency shown to children; listening, smiling sweetly at our nonsensical chatter and our little mistakes. It was a regular secondary-school examination. When he deigned to pry into my limited field of knowledge I could not help fancying myself a microscopic insect that had by chance fallen into his hands, that he twirled and tortured between his encircling fingers.

They all listened to him with great deference. MartÍ ever showed himself proud of having such a friend, and believed in good faith that neither in Spain nor in foreign lands existed a man to compare with him—in the world of theory, of course, because in practical matters, MartÍ was all there, as I knew.

But Isabelita, Cristina's cousin, listened to him with even more absorption. It is impossible to imagine a more complete attention, an attitude more submissive and devoted than that of this girl with a profile like an angel, when Castell held forth. Her pure and pearl-like face was turned towards him; she sat perfectly still as if in ecstasy; the lashes of her innocent eyes did not move.

The one who took the least pleasure in the dissertations of the rich ship-owner was, as far as I could see, Cristina. Although she forced herself to hide it, I was not long in divining that the science of her husband's friend and associate did not interest her. She often grew absent-minded and, whenever she could find a plausible pretext, she would leave the room. Can it be supposed that this lack of reverence for a representative of science lowered her in my eyes? I think not!

I noted further that, although Cristina joined apparently the projects of her husband, and never contradicted him when he discussed them with his usual frankness before us, she showed lively vexation when Castell encouraged them. When the millionaire, therefore, would begin a pompous eulogy of MartÍ, praising in affected language his clear sight, his decision and activity, Cristina's face would change; her cheeks would lose their delicate rose-color; her brow would be knitted, and her beautiful eyes would take on a strange fixity. Usually she could not stand it to the end. She would get up and leave the room abruptly. The good Emilio, intoxicated with gratitude and pleasure, took no notice of this.

What a soul was that of this man, how noble, how sensitive, how generous! Chance brought to my knowledge a magnanimous action that raised him still more in my eyes. With the freedom that he had given me from the first, I entered his private office one day unannounced at a rather inopportune moment. His mother-in-law sat sobbing (for a change) in an arm-chair, and he with his back towards the door was opening his safe. On hearing me he turned and quickly shut the door of the safe. He seemed a little more serious and thoughtful than usual, but the generous expression of his face had not disappeared. He greeted me, making an effort to appear cheerful; then turning to his mother-in-law and putting one hand upon her shoulder, he said affectionately:

"Come, mamma, there is nothing to grieve about. Everything will be arranged this afternoon, without fail. Come now, go to Cristina and rest a little. You must not make yourself ill."

"Thank you, thank you!" murmured the suffering lady, without ceasing to weep and blow her nose.

Recovering finally at least a part of her energies, she left the place, not without giving me a strong, convulsive grasp of the hand and drawing her son-in-law to the door for three or four kisses. He shook his head and said, smiling:

"Poor woman!"

I gave him a glance of interrogation, not venturing to put the question in words. MartÍ shrugged his shoulders and murmured:

"Tss! It's the same as always. Her son abuses the bounty of this poor woman and it gives her a great deal of trouble."

As I perceived that he did not wish to go into further explanations, I refrained from inquiries, and we talked of other things. But a moment later Cristina came into the office, not in a good temper, and asked him:

"Mamma has been begging money of you, hasn't she?"

"No, my girl," replied MartÍ, coloring a little.

"Don't deny it to me, Emilio. I have known all since this morning."

"Very well, what of it? The thing is not worth wrinkling this little brow," he answered, touching it tenderly.

Cristina remained silent and thoughtful a few moments.

"You know," she said at last firmly, "that I have never opposed your expenditures for Sabas. I have enjoyed your generosity towards all, but your treatment of my brother has especially pleased me. Yet I have asked myself sometimes, 'Will this generosity of Emilio have really good consequences? Will it not encourage my brother to continue in his idle and dissipated habits?' If he were alone in the world, he might indulge in such luxurious ways without much danger. When he came to want, you could, by reducing him to strict necessities, keep him on his feet. But he has a wife, he has children, and I fear that they will have to bear the consequences of your generosity and of the habits which, thanks to your kindness, their father does not abandon. And, too," she added in low tones that trembled a little, "at present we have no great responsibilities, but we shall have them——"

"I believe you; we shall have them!" exclaimed MartÍ. "It looks to me as if the first of them would not be many days in arriving!"

Cristina's cheeks colored swiftly. Emilio, changing his tone, went over to her, put his arm about her shoulders affectionately, and said to her:

"You are right in this, as you are in everything that you say. You are a hundred times more sensible than I am. Perhaps I should have refused Sabas if he had come begging of me, because I am already a little tired of his affairs; but your mother comes—when I see her crying—you don't know how that moves me."

Cristina lifted to him her eyes shining with immense gratitude, her face quivering with feeling; fearing that she could not control her emotion, she suddenly left the room.

"Poor little thing!" said MartÍ, smiling once more. "She is very right. Sabas is a bore."

"He gambles, doesn't he?" I ventured, because of the confidence that had been shown me.

"It would be better to say he is skinned by sharpers. What a fellow! He has lost, and promised to pay, five thousand pesetas."

"He promises it, and you have to pay it."

"Possibly. But what is to be done? It is not all his fault. He has a mother who is too soft."

"And a brother-in-law who is too kind," I thought.

MartÍ put his arm across my shoulders, and we went thus to the sewing-room to find Cristina and DoÑa Amparo. They were both there, the first frowning and meditative, the other completely overcome by her emotions. Matilde came in presently to breakfast with them. I perceived that she was sad and seemed as if ashamed. Soon after two ladies dropped in for an intimate call, and conversation cleared up the heavy atmosphere of the room.

Cristina went out for a moment to attend to some of her domestic matters, and I noted that she left her handkerchief forgotten upon her chair. Then, with the dissimulation and ability of an accomplished thief, I went over to it, sat down as if absent-mindedly, and when nobody noticed, I took the precious object and hid it in my pocket. Cristina appeared again, and I noticed that she glanced about at all the chairs in search of her handkerchief; then she shot a glance at me, and, I firmly believe, guessed from my manner that I had it. Then not daring to ask me for it aloud and at the same time unwilling to give up and let it pass that she allowed me to have it, she went about searching in all the corners of the room, asking:

"Where can my handkerchief be?"

Nobody but me observed it, because all the rest were absorbed in conversation. At last I saw her sit down in her chair, take up her work, and go on with it in silence.

I went away to luncheon at the fonda, without accepting their invitation to remain. I had a vehement desire to enjoy my precious conquest by myself; for I considered it such in my mad presumption after she gave over looking for it. Once in my quarters and assured that the door was fastened, and that nobody could see me through the key-hole, I snatched the kerchief from my pocket and gave myself up to a sort of madness which even now makes me blush when I remember it. I breathed its perfume with intoxication, kissed it numberless times, pressed it to my heart, swearing to be eternally faithful, put it away with the pictures of my father, took it out to kiss it, and put it away again. At last I came to the end of all imaginable extravagances, better suited to a young student of rhetoric than to the captain of a steamboat of three thousand tons.