"Crying?"
The poor child did not reply.
"What are you crying for?" he added, with cruel coldness.
Still Maximina made no answer.
Miguel waited an instant, still standing; then he went and sat down at the other end of the sofa.
The lights in the chandeliers burned silently; nothing was heard but the noises made by the servants in the dining-room and kitchen; the atmosphere of the parlor was filled with the penetrating odor compounded of all the perfumes which the ladies had brought with them. Brigadier Rivera's son, bending forward with his elbows resting on his knees, was playing with his glove.
At the end of a long silence Maximina exclaimed in the midst of her sobs:—
"Madre mia! how unhappy I am to-day!"
Miguel's face was violently contracted into an expression of anger; after a while, trying to soften his voice, but still letting it sound very harsh, he said:—
"I had not the slightest idea of such a thing. I did not think that you were so badly married!"