With the deep cunning of her race, blended perhaps with a little of the irritation that had preceded his coming, Papita was the first to speak; and taking exception to the Catalonian fashion of his dress, fortified her own position by commencing hostilities before the young man had time to ask questions, which she felt herself unable to answer satisfactorily.
“So, Chaleco, you have come back at last, and more like a stranger than ever. What Busne has bewitched you in the fair at Seville, that you return to Granada in a dress like that?”
“Why, mother, this is all folly. I have but added this cap to the garments that I wore when we went from hence. Surely this is not a thing to provoke your wrath,” cried the young man, taking a scarlet cap from his head with that half-shy, half-defying look with which some men receive female criticism on their dress, and grasping it with the heavy tassel of blue silk in his hand—“Aurora will not condemn it so sharply, I dare say.”
The mention of this name seemed to embitter the old woman’s reply.
“It is a Moorish cap, no true Gitano would wear it,” she said, eyeing the unfortunate cap with a contemptuous glance, “and your dress of dark blue velvet embroidered at the neck—pockets with gold upon the seams—silver buttons and tags rattling from their rings—and chains over your bosom like the bells around a mule’s neck.”
“Nay, you can find no fault with the buttons; they are from the best silver workers of Barcelona,” cried the count, flinging open the short dark velvet jacket with sleeves, which he wore hussar fashion over this beautiful dress, and revealing his whole person with an air of bravado, which the more swarthy color on his temples belied.
The old woman glanced with an expression that she intended to be one of unmingled scorn, upon the embroidered strips of cloth, blue and yellow, that enriched the neck and elbows of the young Gitano’s jacket, and allowing her eyes to glance down to his well-turned limbs, terminated her gaze at the sandals laced up to the knee by many-colored ribbons.
The young man followed her glance with a half-shy, half-provoked look.
“At any rate, you cannot find fault with this, or this,” he said, drawing her attention to a rich scarf of crimson silk around his waist, and a handkerchief in which many gorgeous colors were blended, that was knotted loosely around his well-formed neck. “I can only remember seeing the gipsy count, your husband, once when I was a boy, but I know well that he wore a dress not unlike this that you revile so, with a scarf and kerchief that might have come from the same loom.”
The old Sibyl kindled up like an aged war-horse at the sound of a trumpet—her withered features worked, her sharp eyes dilated, a grim smile crept over her lips.