Don Alfonso followed her, and caught her by her arm. Then, pulling herself away with remarkable power, she broke from his touch, but, instead of running, she faced him with flaming cheeks, looking at him with frenzied eyes that were frightful to see.
The truth is, that among the many attitudes which he had imagined that Miguel's wife might assume, Saavedra had never thought of such an one. He expected repulses, indignant phrases, even insulting words, and he was prepared to meet them with a cold and careless mien; he expected to be commanded to go on the instant, he expected the threat that she would shout, and he was likewise prepared with what to say to calm her immediately; finally, in the depths of his heart, his presumption flattered him by saying that Maximina could not long resist his attraction and his fame as a seducer. But these strange, inconvenient flights, this mute terror, surprised and somewhat disconcerted him.
"What are you going to do, Maximina," he asked, though the poor child was not doing anything; but it was well to warn her for some event.—"If you should cry or call your servants, you would be seriously compromised; there would be a scandal, everybody would know about it, including your husband, and you would lose much more than you have any idea of.... Come now, be reasonable," he added, in the same mellow voice in which he had spoken before, and approaching her. "The thing is not worth taking in this tragic fashion. It is not strange that I am desperately in love with you, nor am I to blame for it, but the God who made you so beautiful, so sweet, so simpática.... And if you should grant me one little favor—let me kiss one hand as a reward for so much adoration, for so many sad and bitter hours which I have suffered during the last month, I think it would not be very strange, either. It would be on your part not a proof of love, which I know well I do not deserve, but rather of your kind heart, of your generous nature which, even on such an occasion as this, cannot be forsworn. This favor, though insignificant in the world's eyes and before your conscience, would be in mine immense; it would be a secret between us two until death.... My gratitude for it would be eternal.... Come, lovely Maximina, don't give the lie to your goodness.... I beg it of you on my knees. Let me touch my lips to your hand, and go away calm and happy.... Do you wish greater humiliation than this?"
The audacious and astute caballero, in saying these last words, in reality bent his knee, and seized one of the young woman's hands. But she snatched it away with surprising bravery, and glanced around with a face full of terror, as though seeking for aid. Then she went like a flash to Miguel's study. Don Alfonso followed her, likewise running. The young woman took her stand behind the table, and once more cast upon him that timid and uncertain glance, in reality like that of one insane.
Miguel had left open on the table his shaving case, and the razor that he had used lay on top, also open.
By a refinement of affection Maximina had been unwilling to touch these objects or to allow any one else to do so, but left them till his return. She quickly seized the razor, and laying it to her throat, she said in a hoarse voice:—
"If you touch me again, I will kill myself! I will kill myself!"
These were the first words that she spoke during the whole scene, though it lasted several minutes.
The tone in which she spoke and the look with which she accompanied her words, left no room for doubt. Saavedra knew that though she would not kill herself, yet that she would give herself a slash, that the blood would run, and that there would be a serious piece of mischief in which he would appear in no enviable light. Therefore he hastened to say:—
"I will not touch you; don't be afraid." And then he added with an ironical smile, in a tone overflowing with spite, "Come, come! where it is least to be expected there arises a Lucretia. If I were an artist, Maximina, I would paint you this way with your arm raised, and would send you to the exhibition. The razor is a trifle prosaic, but that is the fault of the times. Lucretias nowadays, instead of an embossed dagger use their husbands' razor!"