your permission,” responded the traveller, “I will first go and get rid of the dust of the journey.”
“That is a sensible idea,” said the senora. “Rosario, take your cousin to the room that we have prepared for him. Don’t delay, nephew. I am going to give the necessary orders.”
Rosario took her cousin to a handsome apartment situated on the ground floor. The moment he entered it Pepe recognized in all the details of the room the diligent and loving hand of a woman. All was arranged with perfect taste, and the purity and freshness of everything in this charming nest invited to repose. The guest observed minute details that made him smile.
“Here is the bell,” said Rosario, taking in her hand the bell-rope, the tassel of which hung over the head of the bed. “All you have to do is to stretch out your hand. The writing-table is placed so that you will have the light from the left. See, in this basket you can throw the waste papers. Do you smoke?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” responded Pepe Rey.
“Well, then, you can throw the ends of your cigars here,” she said, touching with the tip of her shoe a utensil of gilt-brass filled with sand. “There is nothing uglier than to see the floor covered with cigar-ends. Here is the washstand. For your clothes you have a wardrobe and a bureau. I think this is a bad place for the watch-case; it would be better beside the bed. If the light annoys you, all you have to do is to lower the shade with this cord; see, this way.”
The engineer was enchanted.
Rosarito opened one of the windows.
“Look,” she said, “this window opens into the garden. The sun comes in here in the afternoon. Here we have hung the cage of a canary that sings as if he was crazy. If his singing disturbs you we will take it away.”
She opened another window on the opposite side of the room.
“This other window,” she continued, “looks out on the street. Look; from here you can see the cathedral; it is very handsome, and full of beautiful things. A great many English people come to see it. Don’t open both windows at the same time, because draughts are very bad.”
“My dear cousin,” said Pepe, his soul inundated with an inexplicable joy; “in all that is before my eyes I see an angel’s hand that can be only yours. What a beautiful room this is! It seems to me as if I had lived in it all my life. It invites to peace.”
Rosarito made no answer to these affectionate expressions, and left the room, smiling.
“Make no delay,” she said from the door; “the dining-room too is down stairs—in the centre of this hall.”
Uncle Licurgo came in with the luggage. Pepe rewarded him with a liberality to which the countryman was not accustomed, and the latter, after humbly thanking the engineer, raised his hand to his head with a hesitating movement, and in an embarrassed tone, and mumbling his words, he said hesitatingly:
“When will it be most convenient for me to speak to Senor Don Jose about a—a little matter of business?”
“A little matter of business? At once,” responded Pepe, opening one of his trunks.
“This is not a suitable time,” said the countryman. “When Senor Don Jose has rested it will be time enough. There are more days than sausages, as the saying is; and after one day comes another. Rest now, Senor Don Jose. Whenever you want to take a ride—the nag is not bad. Well, good-day, Senor Don Jose. I am much obliged to you. Ah! I had forgotten,” he added, returning a few moments later. “If you have any message for the municipal judge—I am going now to speak to him about our little affair.”
“Give him my compliments,” said Pepe gayly, no better way of getting rid of the Spartan legislator occurring to him.
“Good-by, then, Senor Don Jose.”
“Good-by.”
The engineer had not yet taken his clothes out of the trunk when for the third time the shrewd eyes and the crafty face of Uncle Licurgo appeared in the door-way.
“I beg your pardon, Senor Don Jose,” he said, displaying his brilliantly white teeth in an affected smile, “but—I wanted to say that if you wish to settle the matter by means of friendly arbitrations– Although, as the saying is, ‘Ask other people’s opinion of something that concerns only yourself, and some will say it is white and others black.’”
“Will you get away from here, man?”
“I say that, because I hate the law. I don’t want to have anything to do with the law. Well, good-by, again, Senor Don Jose. God give you long life to help the poor!”
“Good-by, man, good-by.”
Pepe turned the key in the lock of the door, saying to himself:
“The people of this town appear to be very litigious.”
CHAPTER V
WILL THERE BE DISSENSION?
A little later Pepe made his appearance in the dining-room.
“If you eat a hearty breakfast,” said Dona Perfecta to him, in affectionate accents, “you will have no appetite for dinner. We dine here at one. Perhaps you may not like the customs of the country.”
“I am enchanted with them, aunt.”
“Say, then, which you prefer—to eat a hearty breakfast now, or to take something light, and keep your appetite for dinner.”
“I prefer to take something light now, in order to have the pleasure of dining with you. But not even if I had found anything to eat in Villahorrenda, would I have eaten any thing at this early hour.”
“Of course, I need not tell you that you are to treat us with perfect frankness. You may give your orders here as if you were in your own house.”
“Thanks, aunt.”
“But how like your father you are!” said the senora, regarding the young man, as he ate, with real delight. “I can fancy I am looking now at my dear brother Juan. He sat just as you are sitting and ate as you are eating. In your expression, especially, you are as like as two drops of water.”
Pepe began his frugal breakfast. The words, as well as the manner and the expression, of his aunt and cousin inspired him with so much confidence that he already felt as if he were in his own house.
“Do you know what Rosario was saying to me this morning?” said Dona Perfecta, looking at her nephew. “Well, she was saying that, as a man accustomed to the luxuries and the etiquette of the capital and to foreign ways, you would not be able to put up with the somewhat rustic simplicity and the lack of ceremony of our manner of life; for here every thing is very plain.”
“What a mistake!” responded Pepe, looking at his cousin. “No one abhors more than I do the falseness and the hypocrisy of what is called high society. Believe me, I have long wished to give myself a complete bath in nature, as some one has said; to live far from the turmoil of existence in the solitude and quiet of the country. I long for the tranquillity of a life without strife, without anxieties; neither envying nor envied, as the poet has said. For a long time my studies at first, and my work afterward, prevented me from taking the rest which I need, and which my mind and my body both require; but ever since I entered this house,
