Part 23 (2/2)

”There, on the little table--you'll find matches. Light--the lamp.”

Candelas stood motionless, near the door, afraid of stumbling over something. When Alicia had made a light, the two friends cast a rapid glance about the room. The only furniture was a writing-table, a bureau with a looking-gla.s.s on it, and, along the walls, half a dozen rush-bottomed chairs. The student was lying, fully dressed, on the bed.

Against the whiteness of the pillow, his crisp and very black hair lay motionless. He opened his eyes, a moment, and then, very slowly, closed them again. Over his beardless face, saddened by the pallor of his lips, wandered the ethereal, luminous whiteness of the last agony.

The two girls drew near him. Alicia called:

”Enrique! Enrique!”

He half-opened his eyes. His dark pupils fixed their gaze on Little Goldie, in a look of grat.i.tude. She repeated:

”Enrique! Can you hear me?”

”Yes.”

”They shot you, did they?”

”Yes.”

”You--committed that--robbery in the Calle Mayor?”

”Yes.”

Alicia looked exultingly at Candelas, as if asking her to take full cognizance of this exploit of hers. Her expression showed the same kind of pride that people sometimes manifest when they are exhibiting a work of art. She had just won a great triumph, because men dare such crimes only for women capable of inspiring mad love. Then the girl lowered her head again, to look more carefully at the student's clothing; and as she found it all stained with blood she felt a new attack of nausea. The contrast was too sharp between the hot, sickening air of that long-closed room and the life-giving breeze of the street.

”Shall I open the window?” asked she.

”No, no,” murmured Enrique. ”I'm very weak. The cold would kill me.”

Alicia, seated on the bed--that poor bed one night perfumed with violets by her body--silently looked at him. A broad-brimmed crimson hat, decked with a splendid white plume, shaded her pale face. Her green eyes shone wickedly in the livid, bluish circles under them. The free-and-easy grace of her manner, the childish shortness of her waist, the robust fullness of her hips and breast, and the uneasiness with which her impatient, dancing little feet tapped the floor as if they wanted to run away, strongly contrasted with the ugliness of the room--the bare, half-furnished room heavy with the odors of death.

Candelas seemed truly moved. But Alicia felt as if she were choking. The terrible nausea kept gaining on her. Now and then she raised her lace handkerchief to her pleasure-loving nose--her nose which all the afternoon had breathed the free, fresh air of the race-track. Her growing disgust overcame her distress. She could not weep. And after all, why should she? Just so she could get away from there quickly, little cared she whether Enrique lived a few hours more or less. In her abysmal ingrat.i.tude, Alicia Pardo wondered that women could love a man so much as to kiss his dead lips.

Suddenly, anxious to have it all over, she asked:

”But--how did they wound you?”

Enrique opened his eyes again, and then his lips.

”I'll tell you,” said he.

Despite the terrible bleeding he had suffered, some little strength still remained in him. This last, dying strength enabled him to speak.

”I stole for you, Alicia,” he gasped, ”because you told me, that evening you sent me away, I could see you again when I should bring you the necklace you wanted.”

Alicia exclaimed:

”I don't remember that!”

”Well, I do! You told me so. I remember it all.”

<script>