“I shall not go,” was the first thing that Ferragut said on finding himself alone.

He knew just what that invitation signified.  He recalled an infinite number of former unconfessable friendships that he had had in Barcelona,—­women that he had met in other times, between voyages, without any passion whatever, but through his vagabond curiosity, anxious for novelty.  Perhaps some one of these had seen him in the Rambla, sending this intermediary in order to renew the old relations.  The captain probably enjoyed the fame of a rich man now that everybody was commenting upon the amazingly good business transacted by the proprietors of ships.

“I shall not go,” he again told himself energetically.  He considered it useless to bother about this interview, to encounter the mercenary smile of a familiar but forgotten acquaintance.

But the insistence of the recollection and the very tenacity with which he kept repeating to himself his promise not to keep the tryst, made Ferragut begin to suspect that it might be just as well to go after all.

After luncheon his will-power weakened.  He didn’t know what to do with himself during the afternoon.  His only distraction was to visit his cousins in their counting-houses, or to meander through the Rambla.  Why not go?...  Perhaps he might be mistaken, and the interview might prove an interesting one.  At all events, he would have the chance of retiring after a brief conversation about the past....  His curiosity was becoming excited by the mystery.

And at three in the afternoon he took a street car that conducted him to the new districts springing up around the base of Tibidabo.

The commercial bourgeoisie had covered these lands with an architectural efflorescence, legitimate daughter of their dreams.  Shopkeepers and manufacturers had wished to have here a pleasure house, traditionally called a torre, in order to rest on Sundays and at the same time make a show of their wealth with these Gothic, Arabic, Greek, and Persian creations.  The most patriotic were relying on the inspiration of native architects who had invented a Catalan art with pointed arches, battlements, and ducal coronets.  These medieval coronets, which were repeated even on the peaks of the chimney pots, were the everlasting decorative motif of an industrial city little given to dreams and lusting for lucre.

Ferragut advanced through the solitary street between two rows of freshly transplanted trees that were just sending forth their first growth.  He looked at the facades of the torres made of blocks of cement imitating the stone of the old fortresses, or with tiles which represented fantastic landscapes, absurd flowers, bluish, glazed nymphs.

Upon getting out of the street car he made a resolution.  He would look at the outside only of the house.  Perhaps that would aid him in discovering the woman!  Then he would just continue on his way.