“Ah, Miranda! You are my guardian angel! If there is no other way of accomplishing it, you and I will run away some night--an elopement. We will do as they do in the novels: you shall come on a fiery steed, I will get up behind, and let them overtake us if they can. We will first put Perico and Lucía under lock and key, and leave them there to do penance for their sins, eh? What do you say?”
When they reached the entrance to the _châlet_, where lights were already shining among the dark foliage of the trees, Miranda said to himself:
“This one is more amusing than my wife. At least she says something, if it is only nonsense; and she is cheerful, although she has half of one lung God knows in what condition.”
“This girl is more insipid than water, than water,” Perico, on his side, said to himself on parting from Lucía.
Meantime the longed-for day of the evening entertainment arrived. Pilar was in the habit of spending a couple of hours daily in the Salle des Dames of the Casino, generally from one to three o’clock in the afternoon. The Salle des Dames is one of the many attractions of the fine building which is the center of the gayety of the town, where the ladies who are subscribers to the Casino can take refuge without fear of masculine intrusion; there they are at home, and rule with absolute sway; they play the piano, embroider, chat, and sometimes indulge in a sherbet or some sweetmeat or bon-bon, which they nibble with as much enjoyment as if they were mice let loose in a cupboard full of dainties. It might be taken for a modern Moorish harem, a gynecæum, not hidden within the modest shadow of the home, but situated in the most public of all possible places. There congregated all the feminine stars of the firmament of Vichy, and there Pilar met assembled the small but brilliant Spanish-American colony--the de Amézegas, Luisa Natal, the Countess of Monteros; and there was established a sort of Spanish coterie which, if not very numerous, was none the less animated and gay. While some blonde Englishwoman executed pieces of classic music on the piano, and the Frenchwomen seized the occasion to display exquisite worsted-work, at which they worked at the rate of two or three stitches an hour, the Spanish women, more sincere, gave themselves up frankly to idleness and spent the time chatting and fanning themselves. A fine geographical globe at the farther end of the parlor seemed asking what was its object and aim in such a place; and in exchange, the portraits of the two sisters of Louis XVI, Victoria and Adelaide, traditional _dames_ of Vichy, with powdered hair and rosy, smiling faces, presided over the exhibition of frivolity continually being celebrated in their honor. There were whisperings, like the flutterings of bird’s wings in an aviary; sounds of laughter, like the sound of pearls dropping into a crystal cup; the silky flutter of fans, the click of the sticks, the noise made by the casters of the chairs rolling over the waxed floors, the _frou-frou_ of skirts, like the rustling of insects’ wings. The air was perfumed by the mingled odors of gardenia, toilet vinegar, smelling-salts, and perfumery. On chairs and tables lay trinkets and articles of adornment, long-handled silk parasols embroidered in gold, work-boxes of Russian leather, work-baskets of straw ornamented with worsted balls and tassels; here a lace scarf, there a lawn handkerchief; here a bunch of flowers exhaling in death their sweetest perfume, there a dotted tulle veil, and, resting on it, the pins used to fasten it. The group of Spanish women, headed by Lola Amézega, who was of a very resolute character, maintained a certain independence and intimacy among themselves, very different from the reserve of the Englishwomen, between whom and the Spanish group there was even perceptible a feeling of secret hostility and mutual contempt.