Rafael noticed finally that the recluse was approaching,
unable to restrain a desire to communicate his admiration
to someone.
“What a woman!” the man cried, rolling
his eyes to express his full enthusiasm.
She had given him a duro, one of those white
discs which, in that atheistic age, so rarely ascended
that mountain trail! And there the poor invalid
sat at the door of the Hermitage, staring into her
apron blankly, hypnotized by the glitter of all that
wealth! Duros, pesetas, two-pesetas,
dimes! All the money the lady had brought!
Even a gold button, which must have come from her
glove!
Rafael shared in the general astonishment. But
who the devil was that woman?
“How do I know!” the rustic answered.
“But judging from the language of the maid,”
he went on with great conviction: “I should
say she was some Frenchwoman ... some Frenchwoman
... with a pile of money!”
Rafael turned once more in the direction of the two
parasols that were slowly winding down the slope.
They were barely visible now. The larger of the
two, a mere speck of red, was already blending into
the green of the first orchards on the plain ...
At last it had disappeared completely.
Left alone, Rafael burst into rage! The place
where he had made such a sorry exhibition of himself
seemed odious to him now. He fumed with vexation
at the memory of that cold glance, which had checked
any advance toward familiarity, repelled him, crushed
him! The thought of his stupid questions filled
him with hot shame.
Without replying to the “good-evening”
from the recluse and his family, he started down the
mountain, in hopes of meeting the woman again, somewhere,
some time, he knew not when nor how. The heir
of don Ramon, the hope of the District, strode furiously
on, his arms aquiver with a nervous tremor. And
aggressively, menacingly, addressing his own ego as
though it were a henchman cringing terror-stricken
in front of him, he muttered:
“You imbecile!... You lout!... You
peasant! You provincial ass! You ... rube!”
Dona Bernarda did not suspect the reason why her son
rose on the following morning pale, and with dark
rings under his eyes, as if he had spent a bad night.
Nor could his political friends guess, that afternoon,
why in such fine weather, Rafael should come and shut
himself up in the stifling atmosphere of the Club.
When he came in, a crowd of noisy henchmen gathered
round him to discuss all over again the great news
that had been keeping “the Party” in feverish
excitement for a week past: the Cortes were to
be dissolved! The newspapers had been talking
of nothing else. Within two or three months,
before the close of the year at the latest, there would
be a new election, and therewith, as all averred,
a landslide for don Rafael Brull. The intimate
friend and lieutenant of the House of Brull was the
