“I hear strange stories of your whims and fancies, Pepa,” he said at last, thinking that he might presently say something to the point, if he began by saying something foolish. “You break your china, you tear your lace....”
“And what a specimen she is!” cried Pepa interrupting him with a bitter laugh that made Leon shudder. “The poor lady is never to be seen except in church! You do not understand!—You seem to have lost your wits. I am speaking of your future mother-in-law, the marquesa de Tellería. When I was stopping at Ugoibea I had a fancy to see her. They told me all the nonsense she talked about me. The usual thing—that I am badly brought up, that I am wildly extravagant, that my manners are too free, and my style of dress disgusting—yes, disgusting. But the poor woman herself has been so very different ever since she began to lose her beauty—Besides, you see, she cannot live such a worldly life now that she has such a saintly son—for of course you know that Luis Gonzaga, your María’s twin brother who is at the college of the Sacred Heart at Puyóo, is said to be a perfect angel in a cassock? Why, my dear fellow, you are going to live in the very courts of Heaven! Your mother-in-law even wears a hair shirt. You do not believe me? But I know it—her lovers say so....” And Pepa blew away a rose petal which fell on Leon’s forehead.
“Pepa,” he said with some annoyance, “I do not like to hear any friend of mine speak in that way of a respectable family....”
“But they may talk of me! They may call me violent and crazy and I must not say a word. Of course! Everything I do is ill-manners, wild behaviour, ignorance, insolence....! Change the subject then. I am very sorry never to have seen your future Saint Mary face to face. They say she is very elegant-looking—she always was. But she goes out very little at Ugoibea; she and her fool of a mother only walk out together to get fresh air. They say they give themselves no end of airs;—however, you are rich and the marquis—they say he is the only idiot known who has failed to get a place in the government.”
“Pepa, Pepa, for pity’s sake do not talk so wildly; you really hurt me deeply with your heedless speeches.” Pepa pulled at the rose which was now much reduced.
“But you see I am badly brought up,” she retorted bitterly. “And now people are discovering that I have no heart, that I am spiteful, rebellious, and capricious....”
“That is not the truth; but you should not behave so that people cannot believe it.”
“Much I care what people believe. Do I want any thing they can give me?”
“You are too proud.”
“And they say I shall never find a man of any sense to marry me!” she went on with the same angry laugh, which seemed almost convulsive. “As if there were such a thing as a man of sense. Well, I am not one of those girls who pretend to be very meek and goody-goody just to catch a husband; and I can tell you one thing: I will never marry a learned man—I loathe a savant. Perfect happiness for a woman consists in having heaps of money and marrying a fool.”
“I see you are in the mood to talk at random to-night,” said Leon pleasantly. “But you do not mean what you say, and your sentiments are better than your words.”
His eyes had by this time become accustomed to the darkness, or the night was perhaps a little clearer; Leon could, at any rate, make out Pepita Fúcar’s face against the black interior behind her like the dim blurred outline of an old picture. The whiteness of her skin, her chestnut hair, the brilliancy of her small eyes, where in each pupil burned a tiny spark, the pout of her parted lips and the savage whiteness of her teeth as she still blew away the rose-petals, above all her petulant air made her seem almost pretty, though in fact she was very far from it.
“You might make other people fancy that you were as wild as you pretend to be,” Leon went on, “but I know you better. I have known you since we were children together, and I know you have a good heart. A good mother would have taught you some things you sadly lack and have corrected some faults of manner which make you appear worse than you are; but you have been neglected 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