"You and Cecilia are becoming very friendly. I shall begin to be jealous."
But even as she said those words she gave the young man one of her dominating looks, which showed that she knew the strength of her power. Gonzalo could not break his chain, although he had considerably lengthened it, and he always returned to her feet quiet and submissive, like a comet that passes through space in its whirling course, and then, when at an immeasurable distance from the sun, quietly turns itself toward it.
Gonzalo returned that look with one of absolute submission, but Cecilia turned slightly pale, and smiled to hide her confusion.
"Come, be off. I don't want to spoil your pleasure; but," she added, "if you do take advantage of me the worse for you, because revenge would be mine."
The joke was not a pretty one, considering the former relations that had existed between Cecilia and Gonzalo; but Venturita was not the woman to spare them on that account. The first days of December saw them all back in Sarrio, and a month later Ventura gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, pink and white like herself. Gonzalo was so much in love with his wife that he hailed it with pleasure, but not with that rapture and delight with which some men greet their first-born. His interest was chiefly centred in the mother, with whom everything went well. He was constantly in and out of her room, he felt her pulse and pestered Don Rufo with questions. The doctor considered that Ventura might easily nurse her child, who was strong and well formed. In consideration of the possibility of finding it exhausting, the girl had at first vaguely and then definitely expressed her objection to the course, so Gonzalo soon concurred in this decision, and, moreover, considered it quite reasonable. Doña Paula, on the other hand, was very indignant, but she did not dare to express her disapproval to Ventura's face.
Cecilia meanwhile devoted such care and attention to the baby that she soon had entire charge of it.
She had the nurse's bed and the child's bath brought into her own room, as it was supposed to make Ventura ill to have her nights disturbed, while it did not hurt her to have her sleep broken. And, in truth, she was the first to jump up when the child cried, and take it to the nurse; and if that did not quiet it, she walked for hours up and down the room with it in her arms, until she succeeded in putting it to sleep.