Froth Part 8

Castro went up to her, put his arm round her neck, and raising the red veil with the other hand, kissed her on the temple.

"It is always the same," said he. "I get the broken head and you want to wear the bandage."

"What is that you are saying?" she replied in some confusion. "I am going because I have another visit to pay before dinner."

"Come Clementina, you cannot make believe, even if you wish it. You must understand that I cannot listen to insults and laugh, and you insult me at every moment."

"I really do not understand you; I do not know what insults or make believe you allude to," she replied, with affected innocence.

Pepe tried coaxingly to take her hat off again, but she repelled him with an imperious gesture. He then put his arm round her waist and led her to the sofa; he sat down and taking her hands kissed them again and again with pa.s.sionate affection. She stood upright and would not be softened. However, he was so vehement and so humble in his endearments, that at last she s.n.a.t.c.hed away her hands and exclaimed, half laughing, but still half vexed:

"Have done, have done: I am tired of your whining--like a Newfoundland dog! You are abject. I would be torn in pieces before I would humiliate myself like that."

She took her hat off, and went herself to place it on the bed.

"When a man is as much in love as I am," replied the youth somewhat abashed, "he does not regard anything as a humiliation."

"Really and truly, boy?" said she, smiling and taking him by the chin with her slender pink fingers; "I do not believe it. You are not the stuff that lovers are made of. Well, I will put you to the proof. If I told you to do a thing that might cost you your life, or, which is worse, your honour--a few years in prison--would you do it?"

"I should think so!"

"Well then--well then, I want you to kill my husband."

"How barbarous!" he exclaimed in dismay, opening his eyes very wide.

The lady looked at him steadily for a few minutes with scrutinising, sarcastic eyes. Then with a sharp laugh, she exclaimed:

"You see, miserable man, you see! You are a fine gentleman of Madrid, a member of the _Savage Club_. Neither for me nor any other woman would you exchange your dress-coat and white waistcoat for a prison uniform."

"You have such strange ideas."

"Well, well. Go on in the way which your pusillanimous nature points out to you, and do not get into mischief. You will understand that I only spoke in jest; but it has confirmed me in the opinion I had already formed."

"But if you have so poor an opinion of my devotion, I do not know why you should love me," said the young man, again somewhat piqued.

"Why I love you? For the same reason for which I do everything--Caprice.

I saw you one day in the Park of the Retiro, breaking in a horse splendidly, and I took a fancy to you. Then, two months later, I saw you at the fencing gallery at Biarritz, crossing foils with a Russian, and that finally bewitched me. I got you introduced to me, I did my best to please you--I did in fact please you--and here we are."

Pepe made up his mind to endure with patience her half cynical tone of raillery, and by dint of talking she presently dropped it. Clementina when she was content, was affectionate and gay, and ready to yield to impulses of generosity; her face, as singular as it was beautiful, never indeed softened to sweetness, but it had a kind, maternal expression which was very attractive. But if her nerves were irritated, and her opinions or wishes were crossed, the under-current of pride, obstinacy and even cruelty, which lay beneath, came to the surface, and her blue eyes shot flashes of fierce sarcasm or fury.

Pepe Castro, who was neither ill.u.s.trious nor clever, had nevertheless the art of amusing her with the gossip of society, and innuendoes against those persons for whom she had a marked antipathy. The means were coa.r.s.e but the effect was excellent. The Condesa de T----, a lady whom Clementina hated mortally for some displeasure she had once done her, was desperately hard up; she had gone to borrow of Z---- the old banker, who had granted the loan, but at a percentage which had made the lady stare. The Marques de L----, and his wife, for whom also she had an aversion, had, before he was in office, given entertainments to the electors at their country house, with splendid banquets; but as soon as he was made Minister, though they still gave parties there was no _buffet_. Julita R----, a very pretty girl who, again, was no favourite with the haughty lady, had been turned out of doors by the M---- s for having been found in their son's room--a lad of fifteen. This and much more of the same kind fell from the lips of the generous youth, with a scornful humour which put the fair one into a better temper. This was Pepe Castro's sole talent of an intellectual character; his other accomplishments were purely physical.

The clouds had cleared from Clementina's brow. She was now loquacious, smiling, and lavish of caresses; during the hour she remained with her lover, he was amply indemnified for the stabs she had given him on first arriving, as happy as their _tete-a-tete_ could make him.

It had already long since become dusk. The youth lighted the two lamps on the chimney-piece, without calling the servant--his only servant, and the only living soul with him in his rooms.

Pepe Castro was the son of a n.o.ble house of Arragon; his elder brother bore a well-known t.i.tle, and his sister had married into a family of rank. He had been educated at Madrid; at the age of twenty he lost his father. For a time he lived with his elder brother, but it was not long before they quarrelled, since the elder, who was economical to avarice, could not endure Pepe's wasteful extravagance. He then tried living under his sister's roof, but at the end of a few months incompatibility of temper between himself and his brother-in-law led to such violent disputes, that it was said in the Madrid clubs and drawing-rooms that they had cuffed and cudgelled each other soundly; a duel was only prevented by the interference of some of the more respectable members of the family. Then, after living for some time at an hotel, he decided on furnis.h.i.+ng rooms. He engaged a servant, had his breakfast brought in from an eating-house, and dined sometimes at Lhardy's and sometimes with one or another of his numerous friends. His stables were in the immediate neighbourhood, Calle de las Urosa, and were not ill-furnished: two saddle horses, one English and one cross-bred; two teams, one foreign and one Spanish; a Berline, a cart, a mail-phaeton, and a break; it was a channel through which his fortune was rapidly running away, though it was not the princ.i.p.al one. He had, in fact, left the greater portion on the gaming-tables at the club, and by no means a small part bad been grabbed by certain smart damsels, whom he had promoted in a few hours to the rank of fas.h.i.+onable courtesans. This, however, was a fact he always denied, thinking it might diminish his prestige as a lady-killer; but it is nevertheless a fact, like everything else herein set down.

All this is as much as to say that Pepe Castro was at this moment a ruined man; nevertheless, he went on living in the same comfort and style. His losses and his borrowing cost him a great deal: loans from his brother on the mortgage of estate he could not sell, post-obits to merciless usurers on his prospects from an old and infirm uncle, accepted for three times their cash value; jewels given him by his sister, who could not give him money; exorbitant charges run up by the importers of carriages and horses; bills with the tailor, the perfumer; with Lhardy, the restaurant-keeper, with every one in short.

It seemed impossible that a man could live easy in such a tangle of toils and nets. And nevertheless, our young gentleman enjoyed the same beautiful serenity of mind and lightness of heart as many others of his comrades and acquaintances, who, as we shall have occasion to see, were no less ruined, though less fascinating.

"I have a surprise in store for you," said Clementina, as she again put on her hat and tidied her hair in front of the gla.s.s.

The handsome puppy sniffed the air, like a hound that scents game, and he went up to Clementina.

"If it is a pleasant one let me see it."

"Yes, and no less if it is an unpleasant one, rude boy. Everything I can do ought to be pleasant to you."

"No doubt, no doubt.--Let me see," he went on, trying to conceal his eagerness.

"Very well; bring me my m.u.f.f."

Castro flew to obey. Clementina, when she had it in her hands, sat down on the sofa with an affectation of calm, and flouris.h.i.+ng it in the air, she exclaimed: "Now you will not guess what I have in this m.u.f.f?"

Her eyes were bright with glee and pride at the same time. Castro's sparkled with anxiety; the colour mounted to his cheeks, and he replied in a tone between a.s.sertion and inquiry:

"Fifteen thousand pesetas."[C]

The lady's triumphant expression instantly changed to one of wrath and disgust.

"Go--go away--Pig!" she furiously cried, giving him a hard box on the ear with the handsome m.u.f.f. "You think of nothing but money. You have not a grain of delicacy."

"I thought----" The change in Pepe's face was no less marked; it was more gloomy than night.

"Of money, yes; I tell you so. Well then, no. Nothing of the kind.

Nothing but a little tie-pin, which--fool that I am--I bought at Marbini's as I came along, to show you that I am always thinking of you."

"And I thank you from the bottom of my heart, my sweet pigeon," said the young man, making a supreme effort to recover from his sudden dejection, and producing, as a result, a forced and bitter smile. "Why do you fly into such pets? Give it me. But I know what a bad opinion you have of me."

Clementina would not give him her present. Pepe begged for it humbly; still there was in his entreaties a shade of coldness, which to the keen intuition of a woman, betrayed very plainly the disappointment at the bottom of his soul.

"No, no! My poor little pin that you despise so--I can see it in your face. It shall go into the box where I keep memorials of the dead."

She rose from her seat and pulled down her veil. Pepe was pressing in his endeavours to be attentive, and to mollify her wrath. At last, when she had almost reached the door, she suddenly turned about and drew out of her m.u.f.f a neat little jewel-box, which she gave to her lover, looking him straight in the face meanwhile.

The young man's eyes opened, resting on the box with an expression of delight; then they met those of his mistress. They gazed at each other for a minute, she with a look of mischievous triumph, he with grat.i.tude and suppressed joy.

"I always said so! No one in the world knows what love means, but you, my darling. Come here; let me thank you, let me wors.h.i.+p you on my knees."

He dragged her to the sofa, made her sit down, and falling on his knees, kissed her gloved hands with rapture.

"Mercy, what madness!" cried the lady quite bewildered. "What a whirlwind round a trifle."

"It is not for the money, my darling, not for the money; but because you have such an original way of doing things. Because you are such a trump, such an angel!" He clasped her knees, he grovelled before her, and kissed her feet--or, to be exact, her boots.

"What an abject thing you are, Pepe!" said she, laughing.