“Let them come here, auntie,” she said to the old lady.  “Don’t make them talk any more now....  They need to eat and drink a little, and get warm....  I’m sorry I have so little to offer you.  What in the world can I get for them?  Let’s see!  Let’s see!”

And while the two men were being forced, by that somewhat despotic attentiveness, to take seats at the table, Leonora and her maid went into the adjoining room, where keys began to rattle and tops of chests to rise and fall.

Rafael, in his deep emotion, could scarcely manage a few drops of rum; but the barber chewed away for all he was worth, downing glass after glass of liquor, and talking on and on through a mouth crammed with food while his face grew redder and redder.

When Leonora reappeared, her maid was following her with a great bundle of clothes in her arms.

“You understand, of course, we haven’t a stitch of men’s clothes in the house.  But in war-time we get along as best we can, eh?  We’re in what you might call a state of siege here.”

Rafael noted the dimples that a charming smile traced in those wonderful cheeks!  And what perfect teeth—­jewels in a casket of red velvet!

“Now, Cupido; off with those wet things of yours; you’re not going to catch pneumonia on my account, and thus deprive the city of its one bright spot.  Here’s something to put on while we are drying your clothes.”

And she offered the barber a magnificent gown of blue velvet, with veritable cascades of lace at the breast and on the sleeves.

Cupido nearly fell off his chair....  Was he going to dress in top style for once in his life?  And with those side-whiskers?...  How the people in Alcira would howl if they could only see him now!  And entering at once into the fun of the situation, he hastened into the next room to don his gown.

“For you,” Leonora said to Rafael with a motherly smile, “I could find only this fur cloak.  Come, now, take off that jacket of yours; it’s dripping wet.”

With a blush, the young man refused.  No, he was all right!  Nothing would happen to him!  He had been wetter than that many times.

Leonora without losing her smile, seemed to grow impatient.  No one in that house ever talked back to her.

“Come, Rafael, don’t be so silly.  We’ll have to treat you like a child.”

And taking him by a sleeve, as if he were a refractory baby, she began to pull at his jacket.

The young man, in his confusion, was hardly aware of what was taking place.  He seemed to be traveling along on an endless horizon, at greater speed than he had been swept down the river just before.  She had called him by his first name; he was a pampered guest in a house he had for months been trying in vain to enter, and she, Leonora, was calling him “child” and treating him like a child, as if they had been friends all their lives.  What sort of woman was this?  Was he not lost in some strange world?  The women of the city—­the girls he met at the parties at his home, seemed to be creatures of another race, living far, ever so far, away, at the other end of the earth, cut off from him forever by that immense sheet of water.