General Villivicencio sat and waited among the serpents and innocents.
His spirits began to droop again. Revolving Mossy's words, he could not
escape the fear that possibly, after all, his son might compromise the
Villivicencio honor in the interests of peace. Not that he preferred to
put his son's life in jeopardy; he would not object to an adjustment,
provided the enemy should beg for it. But if not, whom would his son
select to perform those friendly offices indispensable in polite
quarrels? Some half-priest, half-woman? Some spectacled book-worm? He
suffered.
The monotony of his passive task was relieved by one or two callers who
had the sagacity (or bad manners) to peer through the dirty glass, and
then open the door, to whom, half rising from his chair, he answered,
with a polite smile, that the Doctor was out, nor could he say how long
he might be absent. Still the time dragged painfully, and he began at
length to wonder why Mossy did not return.
There came a rap at the glass door different from all the raps that had
forerun it--a fearless, but gentle, dignified, graceful rap; and the
General, before he looked round, felt in all his veins that it came from
the young Madame.
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