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His voice shook with wrath, as if he could not stand the atmosphere of that house where the only distractions he found were the pleasant memories that took him away from it. Cotoner's insistence finally forced him to call a doctor who was a friend of his. Josephina was provoked, divining the cause of their anxiety. She felt strong. It was nothing but a cold; the coming of winter.
Lacking Cotoner's assistance, he went to see the "Bella" with some of the young fellows of his disrespectful court. These boys spoke of the "star" with respectful scorn, as the fox in the fable gazed at the distant grapes, consoling himself at the thought of their sourness. They praised her beauty, seen from a distance; according to them she was "lily-like"; she had the holy beauty of sin.
Promptly at ten the Nuncio, Monsignore Orlandi, a great friend of his would arrive; a handsome chap, still young, whom he had met in Rome when he was attached to the Vatican. A word on Cotoner's part was all that was necessary to persuade him to do them the honor of marrying the children. Friends are useful at times!
She stopped, scowling with a mental effort before that portrait which seemed to dominate the studio, occupying the best easel, in the most advantageous position, in spite of the solitary gray of its canvas. The master saw in Concha's face the same expression of doubt and surprise which he had seen in Cotoner's. Who was that? But the hesitation was shorter; her woman's pride sharpened her senses.
Renovales sat up and grasped Cotoner's arm as he described his future picture, and his friend nodded his approval gravely, impressed by the description. "Very fine! Sublime, Mariano!" But the master became dejected again after this flash of enthusiasm. The task was very difficult.
Renovales recovered his serenity when he reached home, seeing that his wife received him with her customary eagerness, as if she had forgotten her displeasure of the afternoon. She laughed at Cotoner's stories; after dinner they went to the theater and when bedtime came, the painter had forgotten about the surprise in the studio.
Then he fled precipitously, hidden under his cloak in sudden shame, with the firm determination not to return, to resist that demon of hungry curiosity which dwelt within him and could not see a woman's form in the street, without feeling a violent desire to disrobe it. These stories came to Cotoner's ears. Mariano! Mariano!
They had had a very pleasant luncheon; mamma had laughed at Cotoner's jokes, who was always in good humor, but during the dessert, when Soldevilla, Renovales' favorite pupil, came, she had felt indisposed and had disappeared to hide her eyes swimming with tears and her breast that heaved with sobs.
He had cast a glance at his picture surrounded by the solid columns of his speech but he had put off reading the praises until later. They did not interest him; he was thinking of something else he was sad. And in answer to Cotoner's anxious questions, who thought he must be ill, he said quietly: "I am well enough. It's melancholy. I'm tired of doing nothing.
The master laughed at the thought of the simplicity of those priests who in the afternoon, after the choir, formed a group around Cotoner's scaffold, following the movements of his hands with wondering eyes; at the respect of the attendants and other servants of the episcopal palace, hanging on Don José's words, astonished to find such modesty in an artist who was a friend of cardinals and had studied in Rome.
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