"Accursed be my ill fortune!" said Alvar, stamping on the ground. "It is on account of that Fernan, and not on account of your husband, that you respond so badly to my love."
"I respond to Fernan just the same as to you."
"So, you are pleased with his graces?"
"Why should not his please me as much as yours?"
"But don't mine please you? Reward me, if it is so."
"But those of Fernan merit an equal reward."
"Oh, how unfortunate I am with the women!" said Alvar, despairing of ever seeing his love requited by the peasant woman.
Whilst she and the page were thus conversing in a field beside the road, Bartolo himself was struggling to make his way through the crowd, looking anxiously in all directions, as if he were seeking someone.
"Oh, Señor Bartolo, come here, as I have great news for you!" cried out a man, who was resisting the rushing of the waves, formed by the multitude, firmly planted against the trunk of a tree. That man was the soldier who, on a former occasion, had so courteously explained to him what was going on between the servitors of the Cid; but Bartolo either did not hear him, or paid no attention to his words.
"Señor peasant, come here, and I shall relate strange news to you," persisted the soldier.