"And the little cupboard with the mirror?"
"Yes, the little cupboard too."
Concha gave signs of giving in. The child looked at her with anxious eyes.
"And you promise always to be good?"
"Yes, I promise always to be good."
"Never to run away again."
"Never."
"Very well," she said, in an affectionate, condescending tone; "then if you promise to be good, and you don't tell the señora, and you give me all that you say, then—then—go on child!"
And in one instant she pulled her clothes off and began to beat her unmercifully, laughing like a mad woman with delight.
The screams of the child reached the second floor. The wife of the Grandee was standing before the glass arranging her hair. She stopped. A singular shiver ran through her, a certain indefinable, vague emotion like a tickling sensation that one can't with certainty term pleasant or unpleasant. Anyhow it was something that modified that insufferable fever that the frenzy of rage had raised in her heart. She stood motionless until the cries had ceased. Her eyes shone, her pulse beat higher.