Froth Part 14

"Not very cheap. But I need them badly, so I should have taken them."

"Do you really need them?" said Salabert, putting his arm on the other's shoulders.

"I do indeed."

"Then I will be your Providence. How many do you want?"

"A large quant.i.ty, at least ten thousand pounds."

"Oh I cannot do that, but I can send you eight thousand this evening."

Urreta's face beamed with a grateful smile.

"My dear fellow, I cannot allow it. You want them yourself."

"Not so much as you do, and even if I did, you know my regard for you.

You are the only Guipuzcoan of brains I ever met with," and as he spoke he patted him affectionately on the shoulder. They shook hands once more, Urreta pouring out a flood of grateful speeches, to which Salabert replied with the rough frankness which so greatly enhanced the merits of any service he might render; then they parted.

The Duke instantly got into a coach from the stand. "Go to Calle de San Felipe Neri, No.----."

"Yes, Senor Duque."

The Duke raised his head to look at the man.

"So you know me?" and without waiting for a reply, he jumped in and shut the door.

"Julian, Julian," he shouted to his friend before opening the door into Calderon's office. "I have come to do you a service. You are in luck, you wretch! Send me home those Londres."

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Julian with a triumphant smile. "So you want them?"

"Yes, my dear fellow, yes. I always want the thing you want to get rid of. Good-bye."

And without going into the little office, he let go of the spring door he had held open, and left. He desired the coachman to drive to a house in one of the northern quarters of the city, and reclined in a corner, munching his cigar and smoking with evident gratification. For our banker felt as much satisfaction after committing this piece of rascality, after cheating his friend of so many pesetas, as the righteous man knows after doing an act of justice or charity. His imagination, always on the alert when money might be made, wandered over the various concerns in which he was engaged, and the vehicle meanwhile carried him on towards the Hippodrome. More especially he dwelt on the mines of Riosa; the longer he thought of Llera's scheme, the better it pleased him. Still, it had its weak points, and he meditated on the means of fortifying them.

It was not yet late. Salabert had time still to pay one of those unavowed visits which form an item in the social round of many a man whose virtues are more conspicuous, and whose vices less blatant than his. He dismissed the coach he had hired, and, his call paid, he walked home.

As soon as he found himself in his private room, he put his hand in his pocket to take out his note-book. His face, which had shone with satisfaction at the consciousness of carrying about with him the golden key to every pleasure on earth, suddenly fell. A cloud of anxiety came over it. He felt more thoroughly. The pocket-book was not there. He tried all his other pockets. The same result.

"d.a.m.nation," he muttered, "I have been robbed. Robbed of ten thousand odd dollars. Curse my ill luck! If a day begins badly--three thousand dollars gone in a bad debt, and now nearly eleven thousand in a lump! A pretty morning's work I must say!"

He started to his feet and rang the bell vehemently for Llera. When the factotum appeared, he was walking up and down the room, strangely excited for a man who owned so many millions. He explained the case to the clerk. A torrent of words, growls, foul expletives, poured from his lips, and he flung away his half-chewed cigar, a sign of excessive disturbance.

"Possibly, Senor, you have not been robbed," Llera suggested, "you may have lost it. Where have you been?"

But this was a question the Duke was not prepared to answer.

"d.a.m.n it, what concern is that of yours?" he replied. "Do you suppose I am likely to have lost eleven thousand dollars? That is to say, lost them--of course I have. But some one else found them before they touched the ground."

"The best thing you can do, Senor Duque, is to let me go over the ground wherever you have been."

"I will go myself after luncheon. Go, if you have nothing else to suggest but calling on all my acquaintances."

Requena went downstairs, dismaying the house like a bombsh.e.l.l, not indeed of powder or dynamite, since uproariousness was not part of his nature, but of sulphuric acid or corrosive sublimate, which trickled into every corner and annoyed and burnt every one in turn. His wife, his lodge-keeper, his cook, Llera, and almost every one of his clerks, had some coa.r.s.e insult flung in their teeth, in the tone of cynical brutality which he affected. After luncheon he was about to go out on his quest, when a servant came to tell him that a hackney coachman wished to speak with him.

"What does he want?"

"I do not know. He said he wanted to see the Duke."

Salabert, with a sudden flash of intuition, said:

"Show him up."

The man who came in was the driver of the coach which had conveyed him from Calderon's office to his mistress's house. The Duke looked at him anxiously.

"What is it?"

"This, Senor Duque, which is your excellency's no doubt," said the man, holding out the pocket-book.

The Duke seized it, hastily opened it, and shaking out the pile of bank notes it contained, counted them with the skill and rapidity of a practised hand. When he had done, he said:

"All right; there are none missing."

The man, who had no doubt looked for some reward, stood still for a minute or two.

"It is all right, my good fellow, quite right. Many thanks."

Then the poor man, with angry disappointment stamped on his face, turned to go, muttering good-day. The Duke looked at him with cruel humour, and before he had reached the door called after him with deliberate sarcasm:

"Look here, my man, I give you nothing, because to so honest a fellow as you the best reward is the satisfaction of having done right."

The coachman, at once puzzled and vexed, looked at him with an indescribable expression. His lips parted as if he were about to speak, but he finally left the room without a word.

CHAPTER V.

PRECIPITANCY.

Raimundo Alcazar--for this was the name of the pertinacious youth who had so provoked Clementina by following her when we first had the honour of making her acquaintance--met the wrathful glance she had fired at him as she went into her sister-in-law's house with perfect and resigned submission. He waited for a moment to see whether she had gone thither merely on a message, and finding she did not come out again, he placidly walked away in the direction of the little Plaza de Santa Cruz. He stopped in front of a flower-stall. The florist smiled as he drew near, recognising him as an old customer, and took up a bouquet of white roses and violets, which no doubt were awaiting him. He then went to the Plaza Mayor, and took the tramcar for Carabanchel. At the turning which leads to the Cemetery of San Isidro he got out and proceeded on foot. On reaching the graveyard he hastily ascended the slope and went into the new enclosure, where, as the law directs, the dead are laid in graves, and not in long vaulted galleries. He went on with a swift step to a tomb covered with a white marble slab, and enclosed by a little railing.

There he stopped. For some minutes he stood still, gazing at it. On the stone, in black letters, was the name, _Isabel Martinez de Alcazar_.

Below the name, two dates--1842-1883--those, no doubt, of the birth and death of the dead who slept below. A few faded flowers lay there, which Raimundo carefully removed, and untying the bunch he had brought with him, he scattered the fresh blossoms on the grave, and used the string to tie up the dead ones. With these in one hand and his hat in the other he again stood for some minutes contemplating the spot, with tears in his eyes. Then he walked quickly away without a single curious glance at the other sepultures.

Raimundo Alcazar had lost his mother eight or nine months ago. He had never known his father, or, rather, he had no recollection of him, since he was but four years old at the time of his parent's death. His name, too, had been Raimundo, and at the time of his death he had filled a professor's chair at the University of Segovia. When he had first married he had been a youth waiting for an appointment. Isabel's father, a dealer in forged iron in the Calle de Esparteros, had in consequence refused his consent, and only sanctioned their union when at last Alcazar won the professorship above mentioned. He was a young fellow of exceptional talents, and published some works on geology, the branch of science to which he had devoted himself. His death, at the age of thirty-two, was much lamented in the small circle to whom men of science are known in Spain. Isabel, with her little son, returned to her father's house in Madrid, and there, three months after her husband's death, she gave birth to a daughter, who was baptised by the name of Aurelia.

Isabel was a remarkably handsome woman, and, as the only child of a man who was supposed to be in easy circ.u.mstances, she did not lack for suitors. But she refused every offer. Her friends called her romantic, perhaps because she had more mind and heart than they could generally boast of. She appreciated talent, and detested the prosaic beings who almost exclusively const.i.tuted her father's social circle. She worshipped the memory of her husband, whom she had adored while he lived, as a man of superior talents; she treasured with the greatest care every eulogy that had appeared in print on his works; the sole desire and aim of her life was that her son should tread in his father's footsteps, and become respected for his talents and eminence. Heaven blessed her aspirations. At first she saw him growing up before her eyes the living image of his father. Not in face only, but in gesture and voice, he was exactly like him. Then the boy's progress at school caused her the keenest joy. He was intelligent and studious. His masters were always entirely satisfied with him. Every word of praise which came to her ears, every mark of approbation written against his name, gave the poor mother the most exquisite delight. Now she had no doubt that he would inherit his father's gifts.

She was stricken with remorse sometimes when she reflected how far from equitably she divided her affection between her two children. Whatever efforts she might make to preserve the equilibrium, she could not but confess that she loved Raimundo much the best. Her devoted affection was shown in constant petting and small cares, which pampered the boy and weakened his character. She brought him up with excessive fondness. He, on his part, loved her with such exclusive ardour that at times it was almost a fever. Every time he had to leave the shelter of her petticoats to go to school it cost him some tears. He insisted on her watching him from the balcony, and before turning the corner of the street he looked round twenty times to kiss his hand to her. Even when he was grown up and a science-student, Isabel still kept up the habit of going out on the balcony to wave him an adieu when he went to his lectures. Either by nature, or perhaps in consequence of this rather effeminate education, Raimundo was a timid boy, indifferent to the sports of his companions; and he grew up a melancholy youth, and a serious and uncommunicative man. He had scarcely any friends. At college he joined his fellow-students in a walk before going in to lecture but as soon as it was over he went home, and did not care to go out unless with his mother and sister.