Chapter 28

Admittedly, the conversation taking place right now at his table was wholly beyond Don Alejandro's grasp, but he was absolutely delighted all the same. Victoria, as for her, was as much put out of her depth as he was by the concepts and even the vocabulary used by the two talkers, but oddly enough she felt far less delighted than he was.

Yet she should have felt happy for Don Diego! Someone sharing the same so... so peculiar interests as his was not stopping by Los Ángeles everyday! So yes, she should have been glad for her friend that for once he crossed paths with someone with whom he could converse about what obviously mattered to him, what was close to his heart.

So what? Was it the... the touch of... well, of near admiration she sensed in the voice and even the eyes of this woman that awoke this discreet sense of alarm in Victoria? No, she decided, she was probably rather slightly annoyed not to understand what these two were saying, which rather cruelly emphasised her own lack of education. For which none of these two was responsible, she reasoned with herself.

But still, hearing them talk that way, using words she had never heard but which both of them handled with ease... to be honest it was pretty humbling. And the fact that Don Alejandro seemed not to get anything in all this gibberish either did comfort her only very little. It was as if they were speaking a foreign language, a language of their own that no one else knew around there.

No one? Not so sure, she noticed. For Felipe, as for him, if he didn't hear this strange language seemed to understand it almost as much as they did. He was following the conversation with interest, taking even part in it from time to time through a few signs that Diego translated. Mostly questions.

Victoria saw Gaspar Iturbide, a small landowner of the vicinity, come to them. He was a greatly deserving and hardworking ranchero, who had started from scratch or at least very few and managed to make a place for himself by dint of effort and a keen business acumen, but also had some delusions of grandeur and liked to be called 'Don' Gaspar. Señor Iturbide shook hands with Felipe for a long time after he duly greeted Don Alejandro, Don Diego and the unknown lady who shared their table.

At first, Diego was surprised by Iturbide's mark of interest toward Felipe: never before had he paid attention to the boy, regarding him – like many others – as insignificant at best, granting him about as much interest and consideration as to a piece of furniture that would have happened to be there: useful, functional, nothing more. And lo and behold he was speaking to him, making the obvious effort to clearly articulate, and he was now warmly shaking hands with him, assuring him of his relief at knowing his recent ordeal over and of his trust in his excellent morals.

It was a bit too much, and too sudden, not to arouse the utter astonishment of Felipe himself, of Diego of course, but also of Don Alejandro.

Politely, Felipe let him do but threw discreet questioning glances towards Diego and Alejandro which meaning was obvious: does any one of you two have any idea what's got into him?

And suddenly light dawned on Diego: yes, of course! Gaspar Iturbide has a youngest daughter who must now be around sixteen...

It had to be what this warm and very sudden affection for Felipe was about, Diego thought clenching his jaw. Yes, the day he announced his intention to make Felipe his son, some people seemed to suddenly rediscover this boy's mere existence and to pay him an attention they had surely never before even considered granting him with.

Probably the other side of the coin… Diego was almost wondering whether he had done a real service to Felipe there when the latter, his hand still warmly clasped by Don Gaspar, gave him another quizzical look.

Beatriz, Diego mouthed to him while the man was still looking at Felipe. If the young man fully recognised the name of the youngest Iturbide sibling in the movement of his father's lips, he however absolutely didn't make the connection with Don Gaspar's strange and sudden behaviour, and did not understand how on earth it was supposed to explain it.

Ah, happy innocence and ingenuousness of youth! Diego sighed inwardly.

But as for the connection between Felipe's adoption by Don Diego de la Vega and the new status it would give him, well, others obviously had however already started to make it for him!

From his soon-to-be son, Diego's eyes went to his own father and to the half-smile he had been sporting since he invited young señorita Alacen to share their table...

But what on earth was this obsession fathers had with marrying off their children at all costs! Couldn't they just let them go at their own pace, according to their heart, and let them live their love life as they wished!

Diego then inwardly promised himself that he would never push Felipe on this oh-so personal and delicate path, wouldn't pressure him, wouldn't meddle with it and try to marry him off, and that Felipe would never hear from him the very heavy innuendos Don Alejandro had been aiming at himself for years and years. No, none of that for Felipe! Diego vowed never to interfere in his son's love life, to let him go at a pace that suited him. That Felipe would choose. Without any pressure. Nor interference.

Young Beatriz Iturbide certainly was a very good, nice and proper young girl – Diego couldn't tell, he'd never had any reason to doubt it, but after all he knew her so little! – but he didn't seem to him that Felipe had so far shown any beginning of liking for her, nor that she herself had displayed the slightest particular interest in him. Señor Iturbide's manoeuvre thus appeared as for yet as random and uncertain as a message in a bottle, and what's more, devoid of any meaning!

"...and I'm sincerely happy for you Don Diego," he was now saying, "you must be deeply relieved. But of course it was obvious that everything would sort itself out, and just last night I was telling my wife and Beatriz – my daughter, you know her, don't you? – well, I was telling them yesterday, and they both agreed, that no one in his right mind could possibly question this charming young man's probity and perfect morality, of course!"

"Of course!" Diego echoed. But he did so in a tone dripping with so much irony that even señorita Alacen, yet totally extraneous to what was playing before her eyes and absolutely unaware of the underlying situation could not fail to note the sarcasm in Diego's voice.

Felipe, although he was supposed to understand spoken words just by reading lips, wasn't meant to catch nuances of tone for all that, so he did his best to remain stone-faced and not acknowledge Diego's resolutely sarcastic tone.

Don Alejandro, as for him, generally did not like to see his son behave in any discourteous or rude manner, yet for once he kept silent, which acted as a tacit agreement with Diego, because Señor Iturbide's tirade had grated on his nerves too: if Don Gaspar was so convinced of Felipe's innocence from the start, how comes he didn't come sooner to show them his support, even though only moral support, anytime during the two days before señorita Alacen awakened and cleared his name!

Victoria, for her part, hadn't missed the scene unfolding so close to her and had not missed a single word of it either. She could only approve Diego's slight fit of temper and gave him a look that was both knowing and sympathetic, rolling his eyes at the act Iturbide had put on for them.

When he finally left, Luz asked Diego and Felipe:

"A good friend of yours?"

Felipe stared at her but could not answer, still a bit stunned by what just happened.

"Apparently..." Diego answered cautiously, a touch of irony in his voice which tone was otherwise falsely sceptical.

z~z~z~z~z~z~z

Still sitting on their bench in the tavern, the four guests watched Señor Iturbide walk back to his table on the veranda.

"Well," Luz suddenly let out , "where were we, again?"

Felipe then drew an imaginary wave with the tip of his index finger and then traced a straight line before using both hands to simulate a splaying shape.

"Right," Luz said, "thank you. Yes, the undulatory behaviour of light seems to be evidenced by this phenomenon, I agree with you on that point Don Diego, however as rigorous and thorough as it is, as elegant and appealing as may be the equations presented in it, you must admit that your memoir blithely leaves aside everything that would seem to corroborate the hypothesis of a tangible nature of light and–

"How so, blithely leaves aside?" Diego asked, slightly on the defensive. "I find on the contrary that–"

"Come on," she cut in, "let's be a bit more impartial: what of the overall rectilinear displacement of light? Of the proportionality between the intensity of brightness and the amount incandescent material? Of the difference of temperature between dark- and light-coloured containers? Of–"

"That was not the subject of this experiment!" Diego exclaimed.

"Of the experiment, no," she agreed. "But your paper wasn't supposed to confine itself to it: it was about of the nature of light, and Young's experiment seemed to have convinced you. I admit myself that it would convince anyone, but you just seem to have simply dismissed as you pleased any previous observation that was not in agreement with the hypothesis you were trying to support. At least, you can surely concede that this is not the most serious attitude a truly impartial mind can adopt whenever facing a phenomenon he fails to explain through his own theory-"

"This is not my theory," he corrected. "Unfortunately so..." he added regretfully.

"Yes, I hear you Señor," she said. "So let's render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and unto Young what belongs to Young. Nonetheless your essay, as extraordinarily well written and deeply detailed as it is with regard to wave-like phenomena, merrily ignores Ptolemy, Descartes and Newton. Come up with a satisfactory interpretation of all observed phenomena that would be based on the wave-like nature of light, and I will be delighted to be the first one to congratulate you and to support you in publishing your results!"

Again Victoria Escalante didn't understand anything of what was said around this table, other than that Diego and this Luz spoke the same language, even though they didn't seem to totally agree right now. Felipe was still following with great interest what was said and nodded at what the young woman was saying, watching Diego from the corner of his eye as if to apologise for somewhat agreeing with her. Don Alejandro, as for him, was having his enthusiasm slightly dampened at seeing Señorita Alacen and Diego apparently disagree a bit over a point to which he didn't understand anything whatsoever.

"What I mean," Luz went on, "is that this behaviour is not totally worthy of a true scientific mind who's seeking the truth about the way the system of the world is organised, and that it's surprising coming from a man who's able to write such a painstakingly rigorous paper, such an elegantly crafted, such an alluring essay as I found yours to be! It's a work that commands respect and I was just a bit unsated, unsatisfied, it just left me a bit hungry for more because I was hoping to find in there an objective counter-analysis of previous theories too, that's all."

But this onslaught of compliments appeared to only slightly alleviate the sting of the modest criticism it sugarcoated, and Diego scowled a bit, not unlike a sulky child, much to Felipe's utter amusement.