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Mr. Incoul's Misadventure

<h2>CHAPTER VIII. AN UNEXPECTED GUEST.</h2> Gradually the whirling ceased, the singing left her ears. Leigh raised his hat and Maida bowed in return. His eyes lingered on her a moment, and then he turned and disappeared. “A friend of mine, Mr. Leigh, is down there,” the girl announced. Her husband looked over the rail. “He’s gone,” she added. “I fancy he is coming up here.” “Who’s coming?” Blydenburg inquired, for he had caught the words. “A friend of my wife’s,” Mr. Incoul answered. “A man named Leigh—do you know him?” “Mrs. Manhattan’s brother, isn’t he? No, I don’t know him, but Milly does, I think. Don’t you, Milly?” Milly waved her head vaguely. She indeed knew the young man in question, but she was not over-confident that he had ever been more than transiently aware of her[102] maidenly existence. She had, however, no opportunity to formulate her uncertainty in words. There was a rap on the door and Leigh entered. Mr. Incoul rose as becomes a host. The young man bowed collectively to him and the Blydenburgs. He touched Maida’s hand and found a seat behind her. A bull-fight differs from an opera in many things, but particularly in this, that there may be exclamations, but there is no attempt at continuous conversation. Lenox Leigh, though not one to whom custom is law, said little during the rest of the performance. Now and then he bent forward to Maida, but whatever he may have said his remarks were fragmentary and casual. This much Miss Blydenburg noticed, and she noticed also that Maida appeared more interested in her glove than in the spectacle in the ring. When the sixth and last bull had been vanquished and the crowd was leaving the circus, Mr. Incoul turned to his guest, “We are to dine at the Inglaterra, will you not join us?” “Thank you,” Lenox answered, “I shall be glad to. I came here in the train and I have had nothing since morning. I have been ravenous for hours, so much so,” he[103] added lightly, “that I have been trying to poison my hunger by thinking of the dishes that I dislike the most, beer soup, for instance, stewed snails, carp cooked in sweetmeats or unseasoned salads of cactus hearts.” “I don’t know,” Mr. Incoul answered gravely. “I don’t know what we will have to-night. The dinner was ordered last week. They may have cooked it then.” “Possibly they did. On a fiesta San Sebastian is impossible. There are seven thousand strangers here to-day and the accommodations are insufficient for a third of them.” “I want to know—” exclaimed Blydenburg, always anxious for information. They had moved out of the box and aided by the crowd were drifting slowly down the stair. At the salida Karl stood waiting to conduct them to the carriage. “If you will get in with the ladies,” said Mr. Incoul, “Blydenburg and myself will walk. The hotel can’t be far.” To this proposal the young man objected. He had been sitting all day, he explained, and preferred to stretch his legs. He may have had other reasons, but if he had he said nothing of them. At once, then, it was[104] arranged that the ladies, under Karl’s protection, should drive to the Inglaterra, and that the others should follow on foot. Half an hour later the entire party were seated at a table overlooking the Concha. The sun had sunk into the ocean as though it were imbibing an immense blue syrup. On either side of the bay rose miniature mountains, Orgullo and Igueldo tiara’d with fortresses and sloped with green. To the right in the distance was a great unfinished casino, and facing it, beneath Orgullo, was a cluster of white ascending villas. The dusk was sudden. The sky after hesitating between salmon and turquoise had chosen a lapis lazuli, which it changed to indigo, and with that for flooring the stars came out and danced. The dinner passed off very smoothly. In spite of his boasted hunger, Lenox ate but sparingly. He was frugal as a Spaniard, and in the expansion which the heavy wine of the country will sometimes cause, Mr. Blydenburg declared that he looked like one. Each of the party had his or her little say about the corrida and its emotions, and Blydenburg, after discoursing with much learning on the subject, declared, to whomsoever would listen, that for his part he regretted the gladiators[105] of Rome. As a topic, the bull fight was inexhaustible. Every thread of conversation led back to it, and necessarily, in the course of the meal, Lenox was asked how it was that he happened to be present. “I arrived at Biarritz from Paris last night,” he explained, “and when I learned this morning that there was to be a bull-fight, I was not in a greater hurry to do anything else than to buy a ticket and take the train.” “Was it crowded?” Blydenburg asked in his florid way. “Rather. It was comfortable enough till we reached Irun, but there I got out for a Spanish cigar, and when I returned, the train was so packed that I was obliged to utilize a first-class ticket in a third-class car. None of the people who lunched at the buffet were able to get back. I suppose three hundred were left. There was almost a riot. The station-master said that Irun was the head of the line, and to reserve a seat one must sit in it. Of course those who had seats were hugely amused at those who had none. One man, a Frenchman, bullied the station-master dreadfully. He said it was every kind of an outrage; that he ought to put on more cars; that he was incompetent; that he was imbecile; that he didn’t know his business. ‘It’s[106] the law,’ said the station-master. ‘I don’t care that for your law!’ cried the Frenchman. ‘But the Préfet, sir.’ ‘To blazes with your Préfet!’ But that was too strong. The Frenchman might abuse what he saw fit, but the Préfet evidently was sacred. I suppose it was treasonable to speak of him in that style. In any event, the station-master called up a file of soldiers and had the Frenchman led away. The on-lookers were simply frantic with delight. If the Frenchman had only been shot before their eyes it would indeed have been a charming prelude to a bull fight.” And then with an air that suggested retrospects of unexpressed regret, he added pensively, “I have never seen a man shot.” “No?” said Milly, boldly; “no more have I. Not that I want to, though,” she hastened to explain. “It must be horrid.” Lenox looked up at her and then his eyes wandered to Maida, and rested caressingly in her own. But the caress was transient. Immediately he turned and busied himself with his plate. “Are you to be in Biarritz long?” Mr. Incoul asked. The tone was perfectly courteous, friendly, even, but at the moment from the very abruptness of the question Lenox feared that the caress had been intercepted[107] and something of the mute drama divined. Mentally he arranged Mr. Incoul as one constantly occupied in repeating J’ai de bon tabac, tu n’en auras pas, and it was his design to disarm that gentleman of any suspicion he might harbor that his good tobacco, in this instance at least, was an envied possession or one over which he would be called to play the sentinel. The rôle of mari sage was frequent enough on the Continent, but few knew better than Lenox Leigh that it is rarely enacted in the States, and his intuitions had told him long before that it was one for which Mr. Incoul was ill adapted. Yet between the mari sage and the suspicionless husband there is a margin, and it was on that margin that Lenox determined that Mr. Incoul should tread. “No,” he answered at once, and without any visible sign of preoccupation. “No, a day or two at most; I am on my way to Andalucia.” Blydenburg, as usual, was immediately interested. “It’s very far, isn’t it?” he panted. “Not so far as it used to be. Nowadays one can go all the way in a sleeping car. Gautier, who discovered it, had to go in a stage-coach, which must have been tedious. But in spite of the railways the place is pretty much the same as it has been ever since the[108] Middle Ages. Even the cholera has been unable to banish the local color. There are trains in Seville precisely as there are steamboats on the Grand Canal. But the sky is the same, and in the Sierra Morena there are still Moors and as yet no advertisements.” “You have been there then?” “Yes, I was there some years ago. You ought to go yourself. I know of nothing so fabulous in its beauty. It is true I was there in the spring, but the autumn ought not to be a bad time to go. The country is parched perhaps, but then you would hardly camp out.” “What do you say, Incoul?” Blydenburg asked. “Wouldn’t you like it?” he inquired of Maida. “I could tell better when we get there,” she answered; “but we might go,” she added, looking at her husband. “Why,” said Blydenburg, “we could see Madrid and Burgos and Valladolid. It’s all in the way.” Lenox interrupted him. “They are tiresome cities though, and gloomy to a degree. Valladolid and Burgos are like congeries of deserted prisons, Madrid is little different from any other large city. Fuenterrabia, next door here, is a thousand times more interesting.[109] It is Cordova you should visit and Ronda and Granada and Sevilla and Cadix.” And, as he uttered the names of these cities, he aromatized each of them with an accent that threw Blydenburg into stupors of admiration. Pronounced in that way they seemed worth visiting indeed. “Which of them do you like the best?” “I liked them all,” Lenox answered. “I liked each of them best.” “But which is the most beautiful?” “That depends on individual taste. I prefer Ronda, but Grenada, I think, is most admired. If you will let me, I will quote a high authority: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> “‘Grenade efface en tout ses rivales; Grenade Chante plus mollement la molle sérénade; Elle peint ses maisons des plus riches couleurs, Et l’on dit, que les vents suspendent leurs haleines, Quand, par un soir d’été, Grenade dans ses plaines, Répand ses femmes et ses fleurs.’” </div> </div> In private life, verse is difficult of recitation, but Lenox recited well. He made such music of the second line that there came with his voice the sound of guitars; the others he delivered with the vowels full as one hears them at the Comédie, and therewith was a little pantomime so explanatory and suggestive that Blydenburg, whose knowledge of French was of the most rudimentary[110] description, understood it all, and, in consequence, liked the young man the better. The dinner was done, and they moved out on the terrace. The moon had chased the stars, the Concha glittered with lights, and before the hotel a crowd circled in indolent coils as though wearied with the holiday. There were many people, too, on the terrace, and in passing from the dining-room the little party, either by accident or design, got cut in twain. For the first time since the spring evening, Maida and Lenox were alone. Their solitude, it is true, was public, but that mattered little. Maida utilized the earliest moment by asking her companion how he got there. “You should not have spoken to me,” she added, before he could have answered. “Maida!” “No, you must go, you—” “But I only came to find you,” he whispered. “To find me? How did you know where I was?” “The Morning News told me. I was in Paris, on my way to Baden, for I heard you were there, and then, of course, when I saw in the paper that you were here, I followed after.” [111] “Then you are not going to Andalucia?” “No, not unless you do.” The girl wrung her hand. “Oh, Lenox, do go away!” “I can’t, nor do you wish it. You must let me see you. I will come to you to-morrow—he has an excellent voice, not so full as Gayarré’s, but his method is better.” Mr. Incoul had suddenly approached them, and as suddenly Lenox’s tone had changed. To all intents and purposes he was relating the merits of a tenor. “The carriage is here,” said Maida’s husband, “we must be going; I am sorry we can’t offer you a seat, Mr. Leigh, we are a trifle crowded as it is.” “Thank you, you are very kind. The train will take me safely enough.” He walked with them to the carriage, and aided Maida to enter it. Karl, who had been standing at the door, mounted to the box. When all were seated, Mr. Incoul added: “You must come and see us.” “Yes, come and see us, too,” Blydenburg echoed. “By the way, where are you stopping?” “I shall be glad to do so,” Lenox answered; “I am at the Grand.” He raised his hat and wished them a pleasant drive.[112] The moon was shining full in his face, and Miss Blydenburg thought him even handsomer than Mazzantini. His good wishes were answered in chorus, Karl nudged the driver, and in a moment the carriage swept by and left him standing in the road. “What a nice, frank fellow he is,” Blydenburg began; “so different from the general run of young New Yorkers. There, I forgot to tell him I knew his sister; I am sorry, it would have seemed sort of friendly, made him feel more at home, don’t you think? Not but that he seemed perfectly at his ease as it was. I wonder why he doesn’t marry? None of those Leighs have money, have they? He could pick up an heiress, though, in no time, if he wanted to. Perhaps he prefers to be a bachelor. If he does I don’t blame him a bit, a good-looking young fellow—” And so the amiable gentleman rambled on. After a while finding that the reins of conversation were solely in his own hands, he took the fullest advantage of his position and discoursed at length on the bull fight, its history, its possibilities, the games of the Romans, how they fared under the Goths, what improvements came with the Moors, and wound up by suggesting an immediate visit to Fuenterrabia. [113] For the moment no enthusiasm was manifested. Mr. Incoul admitted that he would like to go, but the ladies said nothing, and presently the two men planned a little excursion by themselves. Miss Blydenburg had made herself comfortable and fallen into a doze, but Maida sat watching the retreating uplands with unseeing eyes. Her thoughts had wandered, the visible was lost to her. Who knows what women see or the dreams and regrets that may come to the most matter-of-fact? Not long ago at the opera, in a little Italian town, the historian noticed an old lady, one who looked anything but sentimental, for that matter rather fierce than otherwise, but who, when Cherubino had sung his enchanting song, brushed away a furtive and unexpected tear. Voi che sapete indeed! Perhaps to her own cost she had learned and was grieving dumbly then over some ashes that the strain had stirred, and it is not impossible that as Maida sat watching the retreating uplands her own thoughts had circled back to an earlier summer when first she learned what Love might be. <hr class="chap" /> [114] </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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