"This afternoon, gentlemen, I saw a woman whose glance was as bright as a Damascus blade."
Gómez de la Floresta's face would flush with pleasure, and he would look up with a smile of congratulation:—
"That means that it was a cold and cutting glance!"
"Her skin was smooth and brilliant with marble lines; her hair fell like a golden cataract upon her swan-like neck, which was bound around with a diamond necklace, brilliant as drops of light...."
"Drops of light! How felicitous that is, Rivera! how felicitous!"
"She was a woman capable of making life Oriental for a time."
"That is it! Taking refuge with her in a minaret, breathing the perfumes of Persia, letting her pearly fingers caress our locks, drinking from her mouth the nectar of delight!"
"I am delighted, Señor de Floresta, to see that you are consistent. Let us put a stop to it, nevertheless. You have been having an attack of phrases on the brain, and I fear a fatal termination."
The editor smiled in mortification and went on with his work.
A slender young man, with prominent cheek bones, almond-shaped eyes, and awkward gait, came in, making a great confusion, and humming a few strains of a waltz; he went up to the table where Miguel was writing, and giving him a slap on the shoulder, said, with a jolly tone:—