At the end of some minutes, during which our friend, from under his long eyelashes, followed with some alarm the movements of the barber's hand, Cosme said to him, in a low voice, while his lips wreathed with a forced smile which much enlarged his mouth:

"You are Senorito Belinchon, eh?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"I have known you for some time," continued the barber, still with the same voice and smile. "Oh, yes, for a long time. You don't know me, that's evident. Gentlemen don't take much notice of us. I often see you about here on horseback, and sometimes on foot, and I frequently notice you at the b.a.l.l.s at the school. You dance very well, sir, very well."

"Tush!" returned Pablito, whose desire to rise was now quite overwhelming.

"Yes, very well; and, moreover, you know how to choose a partner.

Caramba, sir, what pretty girls you always take, sir! Some months ago you were always dancing with a red-haired girl. She is the sister of a friend of mine. But now you are always dancing with one prettier still--Valentina. Caramba, what a good eye you have, sir! I have known this Valentina since I was a boy--we were friends at one time. Haven't you heard her talk of me--of Cosme?"

"No," murmured the youth, who was breaking out into a cold sweat.

"Well, that's strange, as we were great friends--so great that three months ago we were going to be married. But then you came along, sir, and all was over."

Cosme uttered these last words in a tremulous voice. Pablito had now great cold drops of sweat upon his brow.

Like his ill.u.s.trious father, Pablo had a horror of treachery and deceit.

"Of course, what could one expect?" continued the barber, with the uncertain tone of voice divided between the desire to laugh or to weep, and at the same time he dexterously pa.s.sed the razor across the throat of the gay Lothario to do away with a few encroaching hairs. "Of course a young gentleman of the upper cla.s.s like you can soon oust a rough fellow like me. Girls lose their heads directly one of your sort whispers sweet nothings in their ears. They do it to amuse themselves, when it is for nothing worse. It is too well known that you have no intention of marrying Valentina. You like to spend your evenings with her on the balcony, eh? And then you'll forget her. But I truly loved the girl."

The barber's voice trembled again, and his hand also shook; but Pablito was motionless, he was petrified.

"But now," continued Cosme, "who would marry her but a madman? We poor are beneath you, and we have to bear these things. If you had been my equal we would have met on fair ground. But if I attacked you I should soon have my head broken and be put into prison. And yet," he continued after a moment's silence, in a hoa.r.s.er tone, "if I now went suddenly mad, sir, farewell to horses and carriages, farewell to b.a.l.l.s, farewell to Valentina; just by a slight stroke with this razor--pif!--and all would be over forever--"

Pablito, whose face was now as white without the soap as it had been with it, then uttered such a cry of horror and misery that Piscis, whose eyes had been suspiciously fixed upon the barber, now jumped up suddenly and caught him by the arms; Pablo sprang from his seat, and the master and all his employees cried out simultaneously:

"What is it?"

"Seize the murderer!" exclaimed Pablito, springing upon Cosme, who was as pale as death under his arrest. In one instant the gay young man, still cold with fear, told them what had happened, and poor Cosme was kicked out of the shop by the master, who did not wish to lose the best customer in the town.

CHAPTER XVIII

SECRETS OF GONZALO'S LIFE

Gonzalo, recollecting that the blister had not been attended to which had been put on him the previous day, rang the bell violently. He was lying on his back in bed, gazing at the arabesques on the ceiling, the room being well lighted by two windows. He was not in his own bedroom, but in his sitting-room, where a bed was put up the first day he was taken ill. Ventura had objected to leaving their room, and as they could not both be there he had been the one to move. The illness had proved as serious as it was sudden--it was erysipelas, causing inflammation in his face, hands, and legs, which had nearly cost him his life.

It had been kept from his head by strong applications to his legs, and the doctor put blisters on various parts of his body.

"What do you want, sir?" said the maid, half opening the door.

"Be so kind as to ask my wife to come."

At the end of a minute the servant reappeared, and said:

"She is coming directly."

The young man waited, and in ten minutes' time the fair head of his wife appeared at the door.

"What do you want, my love?" she asked without coming in, and in a tone too careless to accord with the tenderness of the words.

"Come in. It is eleven o'clock, and the blister has not been attended to yet."

"I thought you would wait for the doctor to do it," she said as she hesitatingly entered the room, resplendent in a magnificent blue silk dress.

"He did not say he would come and take it off; besides, it hurts me very much."

The girl approached the bed, and after a few moments' silence she put her hand upon her husband's head and said:

"Won't it be better to wait for the doctor to do it?"

"No, no," he returned, now fairly cross; "it is hurting very much. Fetch the lint and the ointment and a pair of sharp scissors."

Ventura left the room without replying, and soon returned with the necessaries in her hand. She looked grave and seemed absent, while her face betrayed her aversion to attendance at the sick-bed.

After she had put the things on the little table by the bedside, and spread some ointment upon the lint with a knife, the young wife said softly:

"Come along."

Gonzalo raised himself in bed, and, opening his shirt, he exposed his herculean chest, on the right side of which there was the blister. The wife leaned forward to raise the linen covering, and Gonzalo profited by the occasion to kiss her forehead.

Nothing was said. The blister was large, and surrounded by a circle of inflamed flesh. Ventura straightened herself and said, with her usual want of feeling:

"Bah, bah, we had better wait for the doctor; he won't be late. If you like we will send him a message."

"I have said no," returned the young man, frowning angrily. "Take the scissors and snip the blister all round, then put the linen on the wound, and it is done. You see, it is very easy."

Ventura did not answer. She took the scissors, and, bending over him again, began to snip the blister.

"Does it hurt you?"

"It is nothing; go on."

But when the wound was disclosed to view the girl could not repress a gesture of repugnance, which did not escape her husband's sight; so that his eyes darkened and his forehead corrugated with angry lines.

"Look here, stop, stop. We will wait for the doctor to come," he said, taking hold of her gently, but firmly, by the wrist.

Ventura looked at him in surprise.

"Why?"

"Never mind; go away, go away," he returned quickly, fastening his shirt, and drawing up the bedclothes about him.

Ventura stood with the scissors in her hand and looked at him fixedly in astonishment. Her husband lay with the frown still upon his forehead and with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.