Gonzalvo offered her his arm and Lucía was mechanically going to take it when the door opened a second time and the waiter, with a theatrical gesture, announced:
It was, in truth, the unlucky bridegroom, who came limping with difficulty into the room, his right foot still almost useless; the sharp pain of the dislocation, the result of his jump, being renewed every time he attempted to place it upon the ground. The habitual dignity of his bearing thus destroyed, his forty odd years revealed themselves in unmistakable characters in every feature of his face; the melancholy-looking black line of the mustache stood sharply defined against the withered skin; the eyelids drooping, the temples sunken, his hair in disorder, the ex-beau resembled one of those ruins, beautiful in the twilight, but which in the full noonday are seen to be only crumbling walls, nettles, brambles, and lizards. And as Lucía stood hesitating, unable either to utter a word of welcome or to throw herself into his arms, Gonzalvo, the constant censor of matrimony, terminated the strange situation by bursting out laughing and advancing to give a serio-comic embrace to the pitiable caricature of the returned husband.
A few days’ sojourn in Bayonne sufficed to alleviate greatly the pain of Miranda’s foot and to make Pilar Gonzalvo and Lucía acquainted, and even in some degree intimate with each other. Like Miranda, Pilar was on her way to Vichy, with the difference that, while what Miranda required of the waters was that they should eliminate the bile from his system, the little Madridlenian was going to the health-giving springs in search of particles of iron to enrich her blood and restore the brilliancy to her lustrous eyes. Eager, like all people of weak and delicate organization, for novelty and excitement, the new friendship with Lucía, the curious incidents of the wedding journey, and the inspection of her bridal finery, which Pilar looked at, article by article, examining the lace on every jacket, the flounces on every dress, the initials on every handkerchief, served to divert her greatly. Besides, the frank simplicity of the Leonese offered a virgin and uncultivated soil in which to plant the exotic flowers of fashion, and the poison weeds of society scandal. Pilar, at the time we speak of twenty-three years old, had the precocious malice characteristic of young girls who, connected with the aristocracy, through their social relations, and belonging to the middle class, through their antecedents, are familiar with society in all its aspects, and can as easily discover who has given a rendezvous to a duke as who it is that corresponds with the neighbor on the third floor. Pilar Gonzalvo was tolerated in the distinguished houses of Madrid. To be tolerated is one of the degrees of social standing; to be received, as her brother was, is another degree; beyond being tolerated and received is the highest degree of all--to be courted; few enjoy the privilege of being courted; this being reserved for the notabilities who are chary of their society, who allow themselves to be seen once or twice a year; for the bankers and wealthy men who give balls, entertainments, and midnight masses, with a supper afterward; for beauties, during the brief and dazzling period of their full efflorescence; for politicians during the time when they are in power, like cards when they are trumps. There are cases of persons who have been received and who suddenly find themselves courted for some particular reason,--for inventing a new style of wearing the hair, on account of a winning horse, a whispered scandal of which they are the heroes, and which people fancy they can read in their faces.