"Never till this moment; but in the centuries to come it will be known that a Rivera had the discourtesy to tell a Losilla that she wore patches."
"As Heaven is my witness, how that chronicler who reported such thing would lie! El Rivera has said it and stands ready to support his statement in the lists that La Losilla has lovely patches on her face, and that they are of such and such a kind, and applied in such skilful sort that the most ingenious artificer could not have placed them with more neatness."
"Let us drop fables; the main thing now is that I do not wish you to approach me under this appearance of a blasé ladykiller! Do you hear? The people will be thinking that you are making love to me."
"Very well; I will not make love to you: what do you want me to do, then?"
Filomena cast another look of feigned anger at him.
"How graceful! Do you know, Señor de Rivera, that in spite of your audacity, I imagine that you are a person who has not yet got all your wisdom teeth?"
Miguel smiled without replying.
Maximina, who was sitting directly opposite, kept directing timid glances toward them.
Meanwhile, Julia, who had very quickly noticed the persistent attention which her sister-in-law was receiving from Saavedra, and the eagerness that he showed in talking with her, began to grow nervous and irritable, so that her annoyance showed in her face. She endeavored vainly, by a rather inopportune gesture, to bring him back to her side. Finding herself defeated and humiliated, blind with jealousy and anxious to have revenge on Saavedra, she began to flirt with Utrilla. O fortunate cadet! and who could have predicted that in one instant thou wouldst be enabled to pass from those unendurable torments to the summit of all bliss and felicity? For as soon as Julita and he drew near each other, it was as though the poles of positive and negative electricity were brought into contact: the flash of love was visible to everybody.
Julita smiled, blushed, prattled, gave him her fan and her gloves, and the flowers from her bosom, and devoured him with her eyes; but this did not prevent her from now and then looking surreptitiously at her cousin and sister-in-law and casting angry glances at them.