"One has to profit by Ventura's absence," returned the young man with a laugh. "Where is your husband, Magdalena?"
"Oh, somewhere about."
"Come, dance this polka with me, and let us make hay while the sun shines."
"I can't. I am engaged to Peña for it."
While he was joking with those about him, a woman enveloped in a black domino, with a mask of the same hue, never lost sight of him for a moment, sometimes standing at one spot, sometimes at another, but always at a short distance from him, while her two shining, fiery eyes were visible through the holes of her mask. It was Doña Brigida, the ingenious wife of the spendthrift Morin, who was watching for the right moment, like the baritone in "Un Ballo in Maschera," to strike the blow. The victim in that case was a prince, in this it was only a mayor. The reasons of the eminent lady for meditating this crime would not appear so weighty as those of the baritone in the eyes of a man, but they certainly would to any woman.
"The Light of Sarrio," in its anxiety to wound all members of the Cabin, with their relations and their friends, had for the last three or four months taken up Morin's wife as a theme. Thus all her domestic secrets were shown up: her married life, the dependence and degradation of Morin were caricatured, while all the anecdotes, more or less funny, that were the current talk of the town, appeared in print, with the addition of several others, discovered or invented by the malignant editors.
And as if this were not enough, there was not a number of the paper in question which did not make mention in some way or other of Doña Brigida's wig, which fact thus became public property in Sarrio. The anger, the rage, the hate, and the desire for revenge which all this aroused in the lady it is impossible to imagine. Suffice it to say that when she met one of the managers of "The Light" in the street she turned livid, and it was only by a great effort that she restrained herself from springing at his throat like a mad cat. Hitherto she had had no opportunity of satisfying this thirst for revenge with which she was consumed. But now, with Gonzalo before her eyes, she was filled with delight, she trembled with eagerness, like a tiger in sight of his prey. Taking advantage of a moment during which nobody was speaking to him, she came closer behind him, and swiftly placing herself in front of him, she hissed, more than said:
"Gonzalo, why are you so stupid? You are the laughing-stock of everybody. There is not a person in the room who does not know that your wife is this moment with the Duke of Tornos."
The young man was stunned, as if he had received a blow on the forehead; he turned deadly pale, and then made as though he would tear off her mask; but that was impossible, for Doña Brigida had slipped away like an eel among the crowd, and as there were many ladies in the same costume, it was impossible to know which was the one he sought. Then Gonzalo quickly left the room, the words he had heard ringing in his head like hammer strokes. He feared he must fall. In the anteroom he replied with a stupid smile to the remarks made to him; and his uncle, Don Melchor, seeing him so pale, came up to him, and said:
"What is the matter, Gonzalo? Are you ill?"