as a child and now when you are growing up your father has suddenly flung you into the world in a perfect vortex of luxury, folly and riches. You know, better than I, what a state of confusion your household is in—even strangers cannot help reminding you that you are spending at the rate of three months’ income in a week, while your father is too entirely absorbed in making money to think of anything but business. Poor Pepita—so rich and so lonely! I can quite understand all the vagaries which the outside public comment on so severely; I can excuse you—yes, quite excuse you. First you built a hot-house in the garden; then you had it moved to the other side—then you gave up your plants and began to collect china—then bronzes, carvings, old stuffs, what not, and sold them again for a quarter of what they had cost you. They say you established a photographer in your house that he might take views of the garden and portraits of the horses, and all the time you never looked into a single book unless it were some silly almanac or rubbishy novel.
“You are charitable I know, for you are tender-hearted; but Pepa, in what a foolish way! A woman comes to you for help to get masses said; you put two thousand reales into her hand. The same day comes the widow of a bricklayer who has died of an accident while at work on your house, and you give her only a dollar. You have no idea of the magnitude and proportion of the needs and miseries of the poor.
“Poor Pepita—do not wonder at my speaking to you so harshly; it is out of a sincere desire for your good. I speak as your brother might—a brother who wishes to see you wiser and happier.—I tremble for you Pepita; I dread lest hard and bitter experience should teach you, by some awful shock, these realities of life of which you are still ignorant. It really troubles me to see you go so far astray—so lonely too in the midst of your wealth, and to be unable to help you; for our roads lie apart. But I feel for you deeply, and if I may speak to you truly I pity you, yes—I pity you. I admire and esteem you greatly; I can never forget that we have been play-fellows—nay—why should we deny it?—that as boy and girl we had a warmer liking, though a transient one, and that the outside world imagined we were lovers.—All this I can never forget. I have always been, and always shall be your best friend.”
Pepa bit furiously at the stem of the flower, and snatching off the few remaining leaves she almost spit them away again. One or two fell on the young man’s beard. Pepa put her handkerchief to her mouth.
“Bleeding!” exclaimed Leon, seizing the hand that held it.
“A thorn has pricked my lips,” said Pepa, in such a choked voice that Leon Roch was startled and grieved. After a short pause the girl spoke again:
“Do you know,” said she, “that your household will be a funny one?”
“Why?”
Pepa had clasped her hands to stop the beating of her heart.
“Because when your brother-in-law, Luis Gonzaga, who is preparing to be a missionary, begins to preach on one side, and you begin to utter heresies on the other, you will be a match for each other. Leon, I tell you plainly, you are an insufferable prig and your learning makes me sick.”
“But I happen to know that your real opinion of me is a more flattering one.”
Pepa leaned out over the balcony and Leon felt her breath on his face; it seemed to scorch him like a passing flame.
“A man who has studied nothing but stones is an idiot,” said Pepa with a bitter accent.
“There I agree with you—Come, dear Pepa, be friends with a man who has a true and frank regard for you. Give me your hand.”
Pepa started to her feet.
“Give me your hand and say good-bye. Do you not feel in your heart that some day you will want me—perhaps to give you some honest advice, perhaps even some help, such as mortals must ask of each other in the shipwrecks of life.”
Pepa angrily flung away the spray she still held, and it struck Leon on the forehead. He started as if he had been lashed with a whip.
“I—want you!” she exclaimed. “What conceit! Upon my word you must have lost your senses. It is more likely that I shall one day meet a pompous prig with a simpleton on his arm and ask: ‘Pray who is this?’—say good-bye?—Good-bye; and whether it is till to-morrow or for all eternity, it is all the same to me.”
“As you please,” said Leon putting out his hand. “Good-bye. You are off to-morrow with your father. I shall not be going to Madrid at present. We may not meet for some time.”
Pepa turned away and disappeared in the darkness of the room; Leon gazed after her but could see nothing. A faint perfume—as subtle as a dream was all the trace the Marquesita de Fúcar had left as she quitted the window.
“Pepa, Pepilla!” he called in a coaxing tone. But there was no reply, no sound, no sign from the darkness within. Presently, however, he heard a low sob. He remained some time calling her name at intervals, but receiving no answer. Still he heard the sighing, betraying that in the depths of that blackness lurked a sorrow.
At last he went away slowly and softly—as stealthily as a criminal and as gloomily as an assassin.
CHAPTER VII.
TWO MEN AND THEIR SCHEMES IN LIFE.
He stumbled over a root and at the same time felt a heavy hand laid on his shoulder, with the words: “Your money or your life.”
“Leave me in peace,” said Leon shaking off his friend and walking on.
But Cimarra put his hand through his arm and held him so that he was forced to spin round on one foot. Their tottering gait, and their position, arm in arm, might have led a spectator to fancy that the pair were tipsy; but this evil suspicion would have been dissipated by Cimarra’s next speech as he said, very gravely and with an accent of reproof in his harsh metallic voice:
“I have had desperate ill-luck! I am distinguishing myself greatly in Iturburua.”
“Let me be, gamester!” said Leon angrily shaking the arm his companion was holding. “I am not in the humour for jesting—and do not intend to lend you any more money. Has the Marqués de Fúcar left the table?”
“He is just going to his room. I never saw a man have such crushing good-luck. This is the way with the country—to-night I represent the country. Alas! poor Spain!—Solés has won enormously; since they made him governor of a province he has had tremendous luck; his victims are Fontán, X—— and I. But it is early yet. Leon, go up and fetch some more shot from the locker.”
Leon did not reply; his mind was disturbed; but his thoughts were far from the ignoble ideas which agitated his companion. Instead of going upstairs as Federico had asked him, he went with him into the card-room. One of the ‘victims’ was snoring on a sofa; the other was saying good-night, with a voice and demeanour that did justice to a diabolical temper; but he did not hurry himself and wrapped up elaborately, as a protection against the night air.
The two friends were left alone.
“I shall not play,” said Leon shortly.
Cimarra, knowing Leon Roch’s tenacious nature resigned himself to his fate, and seating himself by
