This remark was provocative of a smile from the company.
"Carmela, por Dios! and are these gentlemen going to make believe I was a coquette?" exclaimed the "child" in real concern.
"They would only believe the truth, girl," said Paco. "Now, don't you recollect you lent a willing ear to the ecclesiastical attorney, called Don Maximo, and no sooner had he left the house than you were talking on the balcony with Lieutenant Paniagua?"
Nuncita smiled with pleasure at the recollection of those times, and replied as she lowered her eyes with gracious timidity:
"Don Maximo came to the house every day, but it was never a question of love."
"Neither a courtship nor a refusal?" asked Paco. "Then confess that the one you really liked was the lieutenant, and done with it."
"What! you were in love with a soldier?" asked Emilita, with pleasant volubility, as she cast a teasing glance at Nuñez. "Then you must have had bad taste."
The Pensioner became suddenly serious and his moustache went up in horror at his daughter's sally, but he was immediately calmed at seeing that the captain, instead of being offended, only returned a loving smile, and like all the rest treated it as a joke.
"She is not the only one who has had such bad taste," said Carmelita, with marked insinuation, delighted at the chance of making such a clever hit.
"And who was this lieutenant? Some useless puppy, like we have here?" continued Emilia, with the same taking levity.