"Well, if she doesn't have it as I do, it is because she doesn't care to. I certainly had to get around papa at first. But my sister is so—well, she is as God made her. It is all alike to her. Everything pleases a commonplace person, doesn't it?"
"In this room there is so much taste and so much coquetry, and that there always is about you."
"Why do you accuse me of coquetry, you silly?" she asked, in her old mocking tone.
"Because it is true, and quite right so. Coquetry, when not excessive, adds attraction to beauty as spice adds flavor to food."
"And so I suit your taste! Well, look here; although coquetry may give attraction, or flavor, or what you like, I am not coquettish. You at least have no right to say so. I say—it seems to me—"
"It is true; you are right; you are quite right. I can not call you coquettish, because the coquetry I was speaking of is quite different."
"Do me the favor to sit down, for I think you have grown enough—and let us leave abstract questions."
Gonzalo dropped into the chair the girl offered him, still under the spell of her brilliant, mischievous eyes. From the minute he entered the room he experienced a delight, half physical, half spiritual, which dominated his senses and his spirit. The perfume that he inhaled mounted to his brain, and the magnetic glance of Venturita hypnotized him.
"You did wrong in bringing me to your room," he said, as he passed his handkerchief over his forehead.
"Why?" she asked, opening and shutting her eyes several times, which were like stars at the close of a hot day in summer.