Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/146

 be agreeable to an inferior, conceding him the alms of his attention.

The two cousins confronted each other with a curiosity not altogether free from distrust. Although closely related, they knew each other very slightly, tacitly admitting complete divergence in opinions and tastes.

After slowly examining the Sage, Argensola came to the conclusion that he looked like an officer dressed as a civilian. He noticed in his person an effort to imitate the soldierly when occasionally discarding uniform—the ambition of every German burgher wishing to be taken for the superior class. His trousers were narrow, as though intended to be tucked into cavalry boots. His coat with two rows of buttons had the contracted waist with very full skirt and upstanding lapels, suggesting vaguely a military great coat. The reddish moustachios, strong jaw and shaved head completed his would-be martial appearance; but his eyes, large, dark-circled and near-sighted, were the eyes of a student taking refuge behind great thick glasses which gave him the aspect of a man of peace.

Desnoyers knew that he was an assistant professor of the University, that he had published a few volumes, fat and heavy as bricks, and that he was a member of an academic society collaborating in documentary research directed by a famous historian. In his lapel he was wearing the badge of a foreign order.

Julio's respect for the learned member of the family was not unmixed with contempt. He and his sister Chichí had from childhood felt an instinctive hostility toward the cousins from Berlin. It annoyed him, too, to have his family everlastingly holding up as a model this pedant who only knew life as it is in books, and passed his existence investigating what men had done in other epochs, in order to draw conclusions in harmony with Germany's