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Febrer was contemplating his image, a transparent shadow of quivering contours on the changing waters, through which the bottom of the sea could be seen with milky spots of clean sand and dark blocks of stone broken from the mountain overgrown with a strange vegetation.
How was it possible that these rustics had ever managed to interest him, after all that he had seen of the world? The next day when the Little Chaplain would climb up to the tower to bring his dinner, Jaime would question him about the events of the previous evening. Listening to the boy, Febrer pictured to himself the incidents of the courting.
Febrer used to sit beneath the pergola with the family and Uncle Ventolera who came, drawn by the hope of some gift. They never let him go away without a slice of watermelon, which filled the old man's mouth with its sweet red juice, or a glass of perfumed figola, brewed from fragrant mountain herbs.
The señor walked on, but once outside the square he stopped near one of the first trees and sat down on a projecting root, holding the gun between his knees. The pride of virile arrogance invaded the soul of Febrer. He was rejoiced at his own assurance.
He returned again to the childhood recollections which had been evoked on the road to Soller. He imagined himself in the venerable Febrer mansion with his parents and his grandfather. He was an only son. His mother, a pale lady of melancholy beauty, had been left an invalid as the result of his birth.
Smiling at the pleasant memory, Febrer contemplated the prominent brow which seemed to oppress his imperious, small, ironic eyes. His nose was sharp and aquiline, the nose common to all the Febrers, those daring birds of prey who haunted the solitudes of the sea.
Pablo Vails did not write because he was angry with Febrer for going away without bidding him good-bye. Still he was a good friend, and he was busy disentangling Jaime's business affairs. He had a diabolical cleverness for that sort of thing a Chueta, in fact! He would write more later. Two months had gone by without the arrival of another letter.
He was ruined; his lands were almost in the hands of his creditors; his house was a desert; he had protected himself by selling the mementoes of the past. He, a Febrer, was about to be thrust into the street, unless some merciful hand should assist him; and he had thought of his aunt, who, when all was said and done, was his nearest relative, almost like a mother, in whom he trusted to save him.
Febrer was about to step away from the door when he saw rise from among the groups of tamarisks on the hillside a boy, who, after glancing cautiously about to convince himself that he was not observed, ran toward him. It was the Little Chaplain.
Ingenuous and pretty Margalida! Febrer enjoyed talking with her, delighting in her surprise at his jests and at his tales of other lands. She would be coming with his dinner any moment now. A slender column of smoke had been floating above the chimney of Can Mallorquí for half an hour.
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