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His wife, Carmita, obese with indulgent indolence, her placid expression faintly acid, waved a little hand, like a blanched almond, indicative of her endless surprise at the clamor of men. Andrés was silent, immobile, faultless in a severity of black and white.
Soon, however, Charles Abbott could see that the atmosphere was not normal the vivacity palpably was forced through the shadow of a secret apprehension. Domingo Escobar made sudden seemingly irrelevant gestures, Carmita sighed out of her rotundity.
That, Charles replied, was of no importance now. What could they do with Vincente's body? Carmita, his mother, began to cry again, noiselessly; Narcisa, as frigid as a statue in marble, sat with her wide gaze fastened on Charles Abbott. "What?" Domingo echoed desperately. It was no longer a question of the dignity, the blessing, of the dead, but of the salvation of the living.
A hundred practical objections immediately rose to confront every proposal. Carmita and Narcisa had been sent from the room, and a discussion was in progress of the possibility of cutting the body into minute fragments.
In a flash he saw the gathering disintegration of the Escobar family Vincente dead, his body dishonored; Narcisa, ineffable, flower-like, sacrificed to dull ineptitude; Domingo, who had been so cheerfully round, furrowed with care, his spirit dead before his body; Carmita sorrowing; and Andrés, Andrés the beautiful, the young and proud, betrayed, murdered in a brawl at a negro dance.
Carmita Escobar and Narcisa, and probably Domingo, were driving perhaps by the sea or perhaps toward Los Molinos, the park of the Captain-General. At any rate the women would be away from the house, and that, in the situation which faced the Escobars, was fortunate.
She rose, presently, and walked out. Charles gazed at Domingo and Carmita Escobar; they were sunk in thought, inattentive, and he quietly joined Narcisa. "Andrés has told me a great deal about you," she proceeded; "I made him. He loves you too, and he says that you are very strong and respected everywhere. I have had to hear it like that, for you never come here now.
Andrés entered the room and, without speech, embraced Charles, kissing him on either cheek; and soon Carmita Escobar and Narcisa, with their parasols and embroidered gloves, returned from their drive. They could do nothing but wait for what impended, and Charles Abbott related to Andrés the entire scene with La Clavel. "I believe in her," he concluded. Andrés agreed with him.
Carmita Escobar had faded perceptibly since Vincente's death; still riven by sorrow she ceaselessly regretted the unhappy, the blasphemous, necessity which made the wearing of mourning for him inadmissible. Domingo Escobar, as well, showed the effects of continuous strain; his vein of humor was exhausted, he no longer provoked Charles' inadequate Spanish; he avoided any direct reference to Cuba.
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