With the most unwarrantable familiarity the little priest put his hand on my head, and, forcing me to bow it till it touched my knees, he shrilled:
“Come down, come down, your Excellency, for I am not up so high as that. Parish priest! Oh, if you had called me one of the clergy, _contentaverit mihi_. I am still an apprentice, or, in other words, a raw recruit in the sacred militia.”
He sat down by me, and began to talk to me in the most nonsensical fashion, though I scarcely paid him any attention, because, in truth, my thoughts were quite otherwise engaged. Meanwhile the hour was approaching when the heavy dew, and the dampness which impregnates the air, makes it unpleasant in Galicia to remain out of doors. Our host arose and had us enter and go up to a little parlor, adorned with cretonne hangings; thence we passed into the spacious dining-room, where the supper was served by two attendants; one with the appearance of a rough country lout, the other somewhat more polished, both being under the direction of a fat old woman, who shuffled her feet as she walked, and who, in spite of the decay into which her attractions had fallen, I fancied must be Señor Aldao’s ex-mistress. The two girls that I had met in the court had vanished, and did not make their appearance either at the table or in the parlor.
I was seated opposite my uncle’s betrothed, and the lamp shone full on her face, so that I could satisfy my curiosity by gazing at her--fairly devouring her face, in fact. I at once acknowledged to myself that Father Moreno was right; she was neither beautiful nor plain. Her lithe, graceful figure was finer than her face; the latter having a somewhat sharp profile, and lacking the clear complexion and regular features which are the primary elements of beauty. But after a brief study, I came to the conclusion that if she was not handsome, she was at least very fascinating.
When she opened her black eyes, with their animated expression; when she smiled; when she turned in answer to some question, her mobile face became expressive, life flashed through all those features which I had imagined to be always cold and in repose, in spite of my having already seen in her photograph, by the light of the street lamp in Madrid, some indefinable revelation of spirit.