Other wise reflections poured like busy and knowing bees from the mouth of that extraordinary man. In my life seemed gathered together all the loose ends of existence, all its aims fulfilled, and the quintessence of human relations extracted.
While my future was thus being discussed, although I found myself embarrassed by the new perspective offered to my view, I had, none the less, enough largeness of mind to admire the logic of his discourse, his surprising wealth of figures, richness of diction, turns of expression, subtle and logical distinctions, and the perfect links of his chain of reasoning. The breathing world, I believe, held no secrets from this man, and the mechanism of his reasoning worked with the exactness of a chronometer.
When we reached the cottage and were seated to partake of the refreshment that had been prepared for us, Emilio, who was near me, asked me in an undertone:
"Then it is decided that you are going to leave us to-morrow?"
"There is no help for it. The boat is due any moment now."
"What a pity!" he exclaimed in a melancholy tone; and placing one hand affectionately on my shoulder he added: "Do you know, you rascal, that we are getting used to you!"
I was moved by his words, and more yet by the cloud of sadness that darkened his cheerful, sympathetic face. I kept silence. He did the same. Throwing himself back in his chair, he remained unlike himself, thoughtful and melancholy. At last he turned to me and said, almost in my ear:
"If you would take my advice you would give up your sea-faring life, which, say what you will, is a little risky, and marry and settle down. Why be always alone? Do you never think of old age, and how sad it would be to pass the last years of your life in the power of self-seekers, without children to make bright your home, without a wife who of herself brings order and comfort?"
"But I am an old fellow already," I answered smiling, but sad in the depths of my soul, "I am thirty-six years old."
"That is a good age for a man. And then, by your looks and strength and suppleness, you are only a boy. I know," he added, casting a mischievous glance towards the place where Isabelita was, "a girl of eighteen Aprils who would marry you in preference to all the young bucks of the city."