"Throw me!" exclaimed Pablito, slightly frowning. "It was a bit fresh, child; a mare does not throw me so easily."
"But it reared up so! It almost stood upright. Goodness, how frightened I was!"
"I was teaching it to step high," returned the youth, with a smile of superiority. "As she has not been worked before she resisted a bit. Sometimes her mouth seems too tender, but, taking her all round, Linda is a fine creature. Look here, when I bought her, or, rather, when I changed Negress—and she cost me over and above 1,500 reales—for her last October, she had a temper, indeed; she stuck in the middle of the road, she shied at the carts and carriages—in short, she was an impossible creature, and I said to myself: 'What is to be done with this mare?'"
Pablito, in whose heart the girl had touched a sensitive chord, talked long and brilliantly on his equestrian deeds. Nieves listened with rapturous delight, thinking that behind the minute description of Linda's peccadillos she was going to find her lost love.
But suddenly the orator (pof!) received a blow in the middle of his face, the listener (pof!) received another, and before they had recovered from their surprise they received two more—pof! pof!
The choleric Valentina was the author of this attack, and in less than a minute she had overwhelmed them with blows.
Pablito had nothing for it but to make his escape as gracefully as he could and retire to the street. Nieves remained like an innocent dove in the clutches of a vulture, until Valentina, seeing she could go no further, as her arms were seized by some of the party, quickly tore herself free, left the room, where the next dance was about to begin, and rushed into the street.
Pablito was walking slowly, still feeling quite stunned, when he felt a terrible pain in his arm. Being quite accustomed to that kind of torture, he said, without turning his head:
"Valentina!"
"It is I! Do you think you are going to make me a laughing-stock?"