The Swan of Vilamorta by Emilia Pardo Bazán

Eight or ten days intervened between Segundo's visit to Las Vides and the return of Don Victoriano and his family to Vilamorta. Don Victoriano desired to drink the waters and at the same time to take measures to frustrate the dark machinations of Romero's partisans. His plan was a simple one -- to offer Romero some other district, where he would not have to spend a penny, and thus removing the only rival who had any prestige in the country he would avoid the mortification of a defeat through Vilamorta. It was important to do this before October, the period at which the electoral contest was to take place. And while Genday, García, the Alcalde and the other Combistas managed the negotiation, Don Victoriano, installed in Agonde's house, drank two or three glasses of the salubrious waters every morning, after which he read his correspondence, and in the afternoon, when the sultry heat invited to a siesta, he read or wrote in the cool parlor of the apothecary.

Segundo frequently accompanied him in these hours of retirement. They talked together like two friends, and the statesman, far from insisting on the ideas he had expressed in Las Vides, encouraged the poet, offering him to endeavor to obtain a position for him in Madrid which should enable him to carry out his plans.