Pepita and the others, Manuel with them, ended their gala-day with still
another festivity. They dined together at a little café, and heard the
bull-fight fought over again by those around them. At a table near them
sat three chulos, who talked together in voices loud enough to be heard
throughout their meal. And it was of Sebastiano they spoke, giving
dramatic recitals of his daring deeds, telling each other of what he had
done, of what he could do, and that Madrid had never seen his rival or
peer. And then his conquests. It was true that noble ladies--beautiful
and noble--had sent him messages and tokens. Gonsalvo, who was his
intimate friend, could tell many things if he chose. Sebastiano had
brilliant triumphs. Once he had even been in great danger because the
woman who loved and sought him was of such rank that her relatives
would have resorted to the stiletto rather than allow her infatuation to
continue.
“But it is said truly that he had no love for her--that he has little
for any of them,” said one. “They run after him too much, these women.”
“But there was one to-day--” began one of the others. “I heard it of
Alfonso--he saw her at the bull-fight--Sebastiano--and tried to find
out--”
He made a movement at this moment which brought Pepita directly within
his view. She had been hidden from him before by the figure of Jovita.
He stopped with his wine untasted and stared at her. A moment later he
bent forward and spoke in a lower tone to his companions, who turned to
look also. Alfonso had pointed her out to him as she left the Plaza de
Toros, and he had recognized her again.
“The little one is there,” was what he said, “behind you. He asked if
any of us had seen her before; if we knew her name.”
Pepita did not hear him, and did not know that from that hour they would
all know her, or that at least there would be few of them who did not.
For Sebastiano to show an interest in a woman, to even go so far as to
ask her name, was such a new thing that it must be spoken of and attract
attention to her. And that she was not a fine lady, but only a pretty
unknown girl with a rose in her hair, made the matter all the more
exciting. When she fell asleep, tired and happy, that night, already she
was on the road to fame. Sebastiano, who was the adored of his order,
who in spite of his adventures sought no woman, had asked her name, had
made efforts to discover it, and had learned that among those who had
had the good fortune to see and speak to her she was known as “the
pretty sister of José.” A week from this time José came home one evening
bringing Manuel with him. Manuel was often with him--in fact he had
many friends; almost every day some gay or grave young fellow managed to
attach himself to him, and somehow the acquaintance always shared itself
soon afterward with Pepita. But Manuel appeared oftener than the rest,
having a timid obstinacy, and seeming only puzzled and not discouraged
by the indifference which sometimes ignored his very existence. On this
particular evening he was moved from his usual calm, and so was José.
They had seen Sebastiano; they had spoken to him; in the presence of a
circle of his friends and admirers he had drunk wine with them. “We were
passing the wine-shop and we saw him,” explained Manuel, “and we went in
to look on a little and hear him talk. One of the chulos who stood near
spoke to him quickly when he saw us--as if he knew us--and presently the
same chulo came and spoke to José, and soon Sebastiano came and spoke
too. The one who approached us first was one of the three who drank
at the table near us on the evening after the bull-fight. Once, in
his boyhood, Sebastiano lived near the village you left; he knew Padre
Alejandro and some others; he was pleased to see José and speak of
them--it was as if they were friends at once.”
“He has a good heart,” put in José; “they all say that of him. He
remembered everything--even old Juan, who lived to be a hundred and was
bent double. He asked if he lived yet. It seems strange that he was once
so near us, and was a little lad, ill-used and poor. He is not too
proud to remember it. He would be a good friend to one in
trouble--Sebastiano--though he is rich and spoken of by the whole
world.”
So great a celebrity José was convinced must be known to the entire
universe. That night, as Pepita made ready for her bed, old Jovita, who
had already retired, lay and looked at her.
The girl stood in the flood of brilliant white moonlight which bathed
part of the bare room; her round dimpled arms were lifted as she unwound
the soft dusky coils of her hair, to which there yet clung a few stars
of jasmine. There was the shadow of a smile on her lips, and she was
humming a tune.
“What does he want with José--this Sebastiano?” said Jovita,
grumblingly.
“Who knows?” said Pepita.
“He wants something,” Jovita went on. “They don’t make friends with
those beneath them for nothing, these fine ones. They all talk of you,
these foolish fellows, and he has heard, and makes friends so that he
can see you.”
“What do they say of me?” asked
Pepita, without deigning to look up.
“Men are all fools,” grumbled Jovita; “and they think girls are fools
too. They say you have a pretty face; and he thinks he can make a fool
of you if you are not one.”
“Does he?” said Pepita, with a dimpling cruel little smile. “Let him
come to-morrow--to-night. Let him begin.”
“He will begin soon enough,” Jovita answered. “You will see. Be sure he
does not play the old game with you as he did with Sarita.”
[Illustration: Shook the small stray blossoms out of her hair 069]
Pepita shook the small stray blossoms out of her hair and began to
retwist the coil, breaking into singing in a clear voice:
“White, white is the jasmine flower;
Let its stars light thee
Here to my casement,
Where I await thee.
White, white is the jasmine flower,
Sweet, sweet is the heart of the rose,
Sweet my mouth’s blossom--”
She stopped short and dropped her arms.
“See,” she said, “let him want what he will, let him come a thousand
times, and I will never speak to him.”
In the gardens the next Sunday they met him. Pepita was talking to
a young girl whose name was Isabella, and whose brother. Juan was
following in the footsteps of Manuel and the rest. It was Isabella who
first saw the matador, and uttered an exclamation.
“Your brother is coming,” she cried, “with--yes, with Sebastiano.”
José’s simple face was on fire with delight, but Sebastiano looked less
gay, and his step was less carelessly buoyant than it had been in the
bull-ring. As he approached the group he looked only at Pepita. But
Pepita looked only at José, her eyes laughing.
“Jovita is cross,” she said; “she has been asking for you. She wishes to
go home.”
Sebastiano’s eyes were fastened upon her face, upon her red lips, as she
spoke. He had heard that she was like this; that she gave her glances to
no man; that she was prettier than the rose in bloom, and as cruel as
a young hawk, and his heart beat as he found himself near to her. Since
the hour he had seen her he had thought only of how he might see
her again, of how he might find her. He had made one bold plan after
another, and had been forced to abandon each of them, and then mere
chance had thrown José in his path. And now the instant he approached
her she was about to elude him.
He spoke a few hurried words to José. It was too early to go away; the
pleasure of the day was scarcely at its height; he wished to entertain
them; they must not go.
“I will go and speak to Jovita,” said José, and he went, leaving the
four together.
The two simpler ones were somewhat abashed by the splendor of the
dashing figure; they gazed at it with mingled curiosity and joy. To be
so near it was enough, without effort at conversation. Sebastiano moved
to Pepita’s side. A Spanish lover loses little time.
“I saw you,” he said, “at the bull-fight.”
Pepita looked over his shoulder and smiled at a passing woman who had
greeted her. Her face dimpled, and she showed her small white teeth. It
was as if she did not see the matador at all.
“It was at the bull-fight,” he persisted. “Two weeks ago. You had a red
flower in your hair, as you have to-day. Ever since--”
“It was not true,” Pepita said gayly, to Isabella, “what I said of
Jovita. She is always cross, but she does not wish to go home. She met
an old woman she knew in her young days, and is enjoying herself very
much.”
“Why did you say it?” asked Isabella, with simple wonder.
“Because I wished to go home myself.”
“Truly!” said Isabella. “Why is that?”
“I am not entertained so much to-day,” answered Pepita.
[Illustration: We will make it more amusing 075]
“We will make it more amusing,” said Sebastiano, eagerly. “It shall be
more amusing--”
“There is Jovita with her old woman now,” interrupted Pepita. “I will go
and speak to them.”
She was gone the next instant--her movement was like the flight of
a bird. Sebastiano stood and stared after her in silence until Juan
addressed him respectfully.
“She is very wonderful,” he said. “She changes her mind before one
knows. Just before you came she said she was amused, and wished to
remain.”
“Perhaps,” began Sebastiano, much discomforted--“perhaps it was I--”
“Ah, senor,” said Juan, with great politeness, “never. It is said that
she always does what she chooses, and she chooses to do a thousand
things.”
“That is because she is so pretty,” said Isabella. “She is so much
prettier than all the others, and she does not care.”
“A woman who is so pretty as that,” remarked Juan, sententiously, “need
not care.”
“She says,” put in Isabella, “that if she does not care, others will;
but if she should care, the others--” She stopped, meeting Sebastiano’s
eyes and becoming a little confused.
“What would happen then,” he said, “if she should care?”
“I do not know,” said Isabella; “but she never will--never.”
But if she changed often toward others, Sebastiano found no change in
her mood toward him. They did not leave the gardens until late in the
day. Jovita was enjoying too greatly the comradeship of her old woman,
and was ready to enjoy any pleasure offered to her. Sebastiano had a
full purse, and perhaps understood old women of Jovita’s class. He made
himself very agreeable to these two, finding them the most comfortable
seats and supplying them with things good to eat and drink, over which
they gossiped together, leaving the young ones to amuse themselves as
they pleased. They were very gay, the younger ones; even Manuel, elated
by the presence and hospitalities of Sebastiano, made little jokes. But
none of them were gayer than Pepita. She was the centre figure of
the party; they all looked at her, listened to her, were led by her
slightest caprice. They went here and there, did this or that, because
she wished it. It was Sebastiano who was the host of the hour, but by
instinct each knew it was Pepita who was the chief guest--who must be
pleased.
“Is she pleased?” the matador asked José once in a low-toned aside.
“Does she not entertain herself?”
“Does she not say so?” answered José, with some slight secret misgiving.
“I do not know,” said Sebastiano, looking down. “She does not speak to
me.”
José pushed his hat aside and rubbed his forehead. His respect for
Pepita’s whims had begun early in life and was founded on experience.
“She is young,” he faltered--“she is very young. When she enjoys herself
she--”
He paused with an uneasy movement of his shoulders. It was quite
terrible to him that she should treat with such caprice and disdain so
splendid and heroic a person; but he knew there was nothing to be done.
“She admires you,” he said, with courageous mendacity. “She saw you at
the bullfight.”
“She will be there again? You will take her--the next time?” said
Sebastiano.
“Yes,” answered José. “She has asked that I will. It was the greatest
pleasure of her life.”
But it was true that during all the afternoon she had never once spoken
to Sebas-tiano. She had been as gay as a young bird, and the spirit of
the party, her laughter, her pretty mockeries and sauciness, had carried
all before them. Manuel had been reduced to hopeless slavery. Isabella
had looked on in secret reverential wonder. Jovita’s old woman had
glanced aside again and again, nodding her head, and saying, sagely:
“Yes, she will always have it her own way--the little one. You are lucky
in having such a grandchild. She will never be a load.” But throughout
it all Pepita had managed it that not one of her words had fallen
directly to Sebastiano. If he spoke to her, she gave her answer to the
one nearest to him. If he did not put an actual question to her, she
replied merely with a laugh or a piquant grimace or gesture, which
included all the rest. It was worse than coldness. To the others it was
perhaps not perceptible at all; only he who searched for her eyes, who
yearned and strove to meet them, knew that they never rested upon him
for an instant.
And then when he so daringly arranged that José should invite him to
return home with them, to what did it all come? He was lured to old
Jovita’s side by the fact that at the beginning of the walk Pepita kept
near her, and no sooner had the old woman involved him in tiresome talk,
from which he could not escape, than the small figure flitted away and
ended the journey homeward under the wing of José, and accompanied by
Manuel and a certain gay little Carlos, who joked and laughed like a
child.
And when after they arrived, and the moon rose, and they sat under the
vines, though there was gayety and laughter, he knew, as before, that
in some mysterious manner he was excluded from it, though he seemed the
honored and distinguished guest. Carlos, who sat near some shrubs in
bloom, made a little wreath of white flowers, and as she played and
sang to her guitar, Pepita wore it on her head. Then Manuel, not to be
outdone, wove a garland of pink oleander, and she threw it about her
throat and sang on. Sebastiano forgot at last to speak, and could only
sit and look at her. He could see and hear nothing else. It was almost
the same thing with the rest, for that matter. She was somehow the
centre figure round which they all seemed to have gathered, as she sat
there playing, a night breeze sometimes stirring the soft ruffled hair
on her forehead, which was like black floss silk; and whatsoever she
sang, however passionate and tender the wild little song, however
passionate and tender her voice, her young eyes had mockery in
them--mocked at the words, the tenderness of her own voice, and at those
who were moved by it; and most of all Sebastiano knew that she mocked at
himself.
But he could not go away. Some strange thing had happened to him, it
seemed; it was as if a spell had fallen upon him.
Better to be mocked than to go away. He stayed so late that Jovita
fell asleep and nodded under the shadow of the grape-vines. And at last
Pepita put down her guitar and rose. She stood upright in the moonlight,
and extended her pretty arms and stretched them, laughing.
“Good-night,” she said. “Jovita will amuse you. Already there have been
too many hours in this day.”
She ran into the house with no other adieu than a wave of her hand, and
the next minute they could hear her singing in her room, and knew she
was going to bed.
Sebastiano rose slowly.
“Good-night,” he said to José.
Manuel and Carlos said good-night also, and went out together, walking
side by side down the white moonlit road; but Sebas-tiano moved away
from the shadowing vines with a lingering step, and José went with him
a short distance. Something in his hero’s air of gravity and abstraction
somewhat overawed him.
“She has not been entertained,” said Sebastiano at last.
“Yes, yes,” said José. “She has had pleasure all the day. And she is
fond of pleasure.”
“She said there had been too many hours in the day.”
José rubbed his head a little reflectively for a moment, and then his
countenance somewhat brightened.
“She wished to lie a little for amusement,” he said, affectionately.
“There is no wrong in her--Pepita--but sometimes, to be amused, she will
tell a little lie without sin in it, because she knows we understand
her. She does not expect us to believe. We who are used to her know her
better. You will also understand in time.”
“Then I may come again?” asked Sebas-tiano.
The heavy body of José almost trembled with simple pleasure.
“It is all yours, senor,” he said, with a gesture including the little
house and all the grape-vines and orange blossoms and oleanders. “It is
poor and small, but it is yours--and we--”
Sebastiano’s dark eyes rested for an instant on a little window under
the eaves where a jasmine vine wreathed a thick tangle of green, starred
with white flowers. And as he looked a voice broke through the fragrant
barrier singing a careless, broken bit of song--
“White, white is the jasmine flower;
Let its stars light thee.”
“It is Pepita,” said José. “She always sings when she is pleased. It is
always a good sign.”
If her singing was a sign of pleasure, then she must have been enjoying
her life greatly in the days that came afterward, for she was singing
continually. As she went about her work there was always the shadow of
a smile on her lips and in her eyes, as if her thoughts amused her. And
she was in such gay spirits that José was enchanted. He had only one
vague source of trouble: all the rest had turned out so well! It had all
occurred just as he had dreamed, but scarcely dared to hope, in those
by-gone days when he had been hard-worked and ill-fed and ill-clad. He
had a good place, and what seemed by comparison incredibly good wages.
He had the nice little house, and Pepita had holiday garments as gay and
pretty as any other girl, and looked, when dressed in them, gayer and
ten times prettier than all the rest.
That was what he had looked forward to most of all, and his end was
attained. And when he walked out with her, all the young fellows who
were allowed to come near--and many who were not--fell in love. Yes, it
was true; he saw it himself and heard it on every side. It would take
the fingers of both hands to count those who were frankly enamoured,
beginning with Carlos and Manuel. But it was at this point that the
vague trouble came in. And it was Pepita herself who caused it, by her
treatment of her adorers. To say that she dealt out scorn to them would
be to say too much; she simply dealt out nothing--and less. They might
come and go; they might follow and gaze and sigh--she did not even
deign to seem to know they did so, unless by chance one became too
pertinacious, and then she merely transfixed him with a soft, cruelly
smiling eye. “She will not marry any of them,” said José to Jovita in
bewilderment.
“That will come soon enough,” said Jovita. “She is pretty, and it makes
her a little fool--all girls are like that; but one of these days you
may look out--it will be all over. She is just the one to blaze up all
at once.”
“I do not think she is a fool like other girls,” said José, with
gravity. “But she does not seem to care about love; she does not seem
to know. She is not even sorry for them when they are miserable.” He did
not consider himself when he thought of her marriage; in truth he put
himself in the background, for if some other man filled her life and her
heart his vocation would be gone, and there would be some dull hours for
him before he could become used to it. But he had an innocent feeling
that without this love, of which all men talked so much, the life he
wished to be bright would not be quite complete. She was too pretty and
too good never to be married--never to have a home of her own and some
fine fellow to love the dust she walked on. He himself was only José,
and a brother was, after all, a poor substitute for a lover who could
talk and sing and make jokes, and wear such a dashing air that she would
be proud of him.
“That is it,” he said, sagely, to himself. “A woman must have some one
to be proud of, and she could never be proud of me. If I were Sebastiano
now, it would be different.”
He stopped suddenly and rubbed his head, as his habit was when he was
startled or confused, and his face became rather red. Perhaps this was
because he remembered that among all the rest, the magnificent, the
illustrious, the beautiful Sebastiano was the one to whom she showed
least grace. In fact it was almost mysterious, her manner toward him.
They had seen him often--he had come in many evenings to sit under the
vines; when they went out for pleasure it somehow happened that they
nearly always met him; but when he joined them Pepita became at once
possessed of some strange wilful spirit. Upon reflection José found
that he had never yet heard her speak to him: it appeared to him as
he thought it over that she always by some device avoided answering
directly what he said to her.
“That is a strange thing,” said José, deeply mystified, as he suddenly
realized this, “when one remembers how he can slay a bull. There is no
one else who can slay a bull as he can. It is enough to make one weep
for joy. And yet she can treat him ill.”
But he did not know how ill; only Sebas-tiano knew that. Since the day
he had stood in the arena and had seen all in a moment, as if a star had
suddenly started into the sky, the small black head and rose of a face,
he had lived in a fevered dream--a dream in which he pursued always
something which seemed within his grasp and yet forever eluded him. What
had he cared for all the rest of the women? Nothing. It had confused
and angered him when they had thrown themselves in his way or sent him
offerings, and when he had been told of this or that beauty who was
in love with his proud, bearing and dashing courage. Women! What were
women? He had only cared for the bulls, for the clamor of the people,
and the wild excitement of the arena. All he had wished for was to learn
the best stroke, the finest leap. But this girl, who had never opened
her scornful little mouth to deign him a word--who had never once
allowed him to look in her eyes--somehow this one drove him half mad.
He could think of nothing else; he forgot even the bulls; he spent all
the day and sometimes all the night in devising plans to entrap her into
speaking, to force her to look at him. How obstinate she was! How she
could elude him, as if by some magic!
What had he not done that he might be near her? He had followed her
everywhere. José did not know that she scarcely ever went out without
his following and speaking to her. He used to spring up by her side as
if he had risen out of the earth, but after the first two or three times
he never succeeded in making her start or show any feeling whatever.
But that first time, and even the second, she had started. The first
time she had gone to the old well for water, and as she stood resting
in the shade a moment he appeared With a bouquet of beautiful strange
flowers in his hand.
“God be with you!” he said, and laid the flowers down a moment and drew
the water for her.
She watched him draw it, smiling just a little.
“It will be a fine day for the bull-fight,” he said, when her jar was
filled.
She put her hand up and shaded her working eyes as she looked at the
blue sky, but she said nothing.
“Do you go to-day to the Plaza de Toros?” he asked. “You shall have good
places--the best. They are good bulls to-day, black Andalusians, fierce
and hard to manage. There will be fine sport. You will go?”
[Illustration: She leaned against the side of the well 095]
She leaned against the side of the well and looked down into the water,
where she could see her face reflected in the cool, dark depths. The
next moment Sebastiano’s was reflected also. He held the flowers in his
hand.
“These!” he said. “It was one of the gardeners of the king who gave them
to me. They are such as the queen sometimes wears. I brought them that
you might wear them at the bull-fight.”
She saw their beauty reflected in the water. She would not look at them
directly. They were very beautiful. She had never seen such flowers. And
the queen herself had worn others like them. If any one else had brought
them--but it was Sebastiano. And she remembered Sarita. Perhaps he had
at some time given some to Sarita, knowing that to a country girl who
knew nothing they would seem very grand. Sarita would have been sure to
take them.
A wicked little look came into her face. She turned as if to take up her
water jar. But Sebastiano laid his hand upon it.
“You will not speak,” he said passionately. “No; nor even look at the
flowers I bring you. You shall tell me at least what I have done. Come,
now. Am I a devil? What is it?”
She put her hands behind her back and fixed her great eyes upon him
for a moment. He could not say now that she had not looked at him. He
thought he could keep her, did he, when she did not choose to stay? She,
Pepita! She stood there staring at him for a moment, and then turned
about and walked off, leaving him with her water jar. Let him stand and
watch over it all day if he would.
She went back to the house and called Jovita.
“If you want your water now,” she said, “you will have to go to the well
for it. It is drawn, and Senor Sebastiano is taking care of it.”
“Mother of God!” said Jovita, staring, “she is mad with her Senor
Sebastiano.”
But not another word could she gain, and before she could reach the well
she met a boy carrying the water jar toward the house, and was told that
he had been paid to bring it.
They went to the bull-fight; and, as Pepita sat among the rest,
out-blooming the red flower in her hair, she heard it said that
Sebastiano had never before been so magnificent, had never shown such
daring and dexterity.
“He looks at Pepita,” said Isabella to Carlos. “When he entered, his
eyes found her before he saw anything else.”
Yes, he saw Pepita, and Pepita sat and watched him with as cool an
interest as if the peril with which he played meant nothing. Her
lovely eyes glowed under their drooping lashes, but it was only with a
momentary excitement caused by the fierce sport; the man was nothing.
So it seemed at least to Sebastiano. It was a bad bull he encountered,
savage and treacherous, and maddened by his rage. Once there was a
moment when a shadow of a misstep would have cost him his life. There
was no time to look at Pepita then, but when the danger was passed and
he glanced toward her, she was softly waving her fan and smiling up at
Manuel as if she had not even seen.
“She has a bad heart,” he said to himself, with fierce impatience. “It
is not nature that a young girl should mock at everything, and be so
cruel, and have neither feeling nor even a little fear. She has a bad
heart, or none at all.”
He would not look at her again; he swore it to himself. And for a short
time he kept his vow; but there came a moment when something, some
irresistible feeling, conquered him. It was as if he must look--as if
some magic forced him, drew his eyes toward her in spite of himself.
And when he had looked, a sharp shock thrilled him, for she herself was
looking at him; her eyes were fixed upon him with a strange steadiness,
as if perhaps they had been resting upon him for some minutes and she
had forgotten herself. It was a little thing perhaps, but it was enough
for his hot blood and swift-veering impulsive nature. He had just given
the final stroke; he was panting, glowing. The people were shouting,
rising in their seats, and repeating his name with caressing, applauding
epithets attached to it. Chance had brought him near the seat in
which she sat, with Jovita and José and the others near her. They were
applauding with the rest, all but Pepita, who only sat and smiled. And
in the midst of it Sebastiano made a swift movement, so swift that
it was scarcely to be understood--a mere touch of the hand to the
shoulder--and something bright, like a many-hued bird, flew over the
barrier and fell upon Pepita’s lap. It was the knot of gay, rich ribbon
which a moment before the matador had worn.
“It is the _devisa!_” exclaimed Isabella, in an awestruck tone.
“It is his _devisa_,” cried José--“his _devisa_, Pepita. He has thrown
it to you yourself--Sebastiano.”
The next moment he was struck dumb with amazement. Pepita sat upright
and broke into a little laugh. She lightly waved her fan.
“Why did he not throw it to Jovita?” she said, and with a cruel,
careless little movement she swept the _devisa_ from her knee; it fell,
and she set her foot upon it.
“She has trodden upon it,” said old Jovita. “She has done it for pride,
and to show herself above others. She is ready for the devil. Some one
should beat her.”
“It was the _devisa_,” gasped José. “Sebastiano.”
Pepita left her seat. It seemed as if something strange must have
happened to her. The crimson had leaped to her cheeks, and her eyes were
ablaze.
“What is it to me, his _devisa?_” she said. “I do not want it. I will
not have it. Let him throw a thousand, and I will tread upon them all,
one after the other. Let it lie in the dirt. Let him give it to those
others, those women who want it--and him.” She would go home at once;
not to the pleasure-gardens, not anywhere but back to the cottage;
and José followed her meekly, struck dumb. He had seen her wilful,
capricious, childishly passionate, a little hard to understand, many
times before, but never like this. What had occurred to her? What had
Sebastiano done?
Jovita had picked up the knot of gay ribbon and brushed the dust off it,
and carried it home with her, grumbling fiercely. She was never averse
to grumbling a little, and here, the saints knew, was cause.
“For pride,” she kept repeating; “for pride, and to show that others are
beneath her! Mother of God! the king himself is not good enough for her!
Let him come and pray upon his knees that she will go to the palace and
wear a crown, and he will see what she will say! It is these fools of
men who spoil her, as if there had never been a pretty face before. Let
them treat her as she treats them, and she will be humble enough. She
was always one of the devil’s children with her pride!”
But Pepita, who heard it all, said nothing, though once or twice she
gave her little mocking laugh.