"And are you not afraid," he asked at last, speaking slowly, "if following upon the thousand tortures and humiliations that you have made me suffer, and my despair of ever being successful with you, if no compassion follows, that my love might be turned into hate, and that I take means that the event which overthrows me should engulf you and yours in yet more frightful ruin?"
"No, I am not afraid," she replied with fiery pride.
"You do well. I shall not take any revenge whatever."
"You may do it if you choose," she interrupted him impetuously. "Emilio is a man who likes luxuries and comforts, I know, but he cares very much more for his wife and his honor. If the alternative were offered him, he would give his fortune gladly, if not also his life. So you may ruin him as soon as you please. If nothing is left us, we two can go to work. But when he finds himself in somebody's office as a humble clerk, nobody can come up to him and call him a complaisant husband; and when I go through the streets, the people in Valencia may lean out of their balcony windows and say: 'This poor woman that we see there with a basket on her arm used to have her carriage and go dressed in her silks;' but they shall not say, I swear it, 'She who goes yonder is a prostitute.'"
Her voice sank as she uttered the word. I felt my throat constrict.
"Oh, oh! this is too much!" exclaimed Castell.
"Yes." She repeated the word firmly. "And it is all the same whether one sells oneself for fear or to get money."
"Pardon me, Cristina, but it seems to me that you are giving the conversation rather a romantic turn. 'A basket on her arm.' This is folly! I call your good judgment in against such nonsense. Here is a man who loves you with all the strength of his soul, who to win your love would be capable of making any sacrifice, even of his life. You have already taken away all my hope, and, in abandoning the contest, at least don't make me out a seducer in a novel of the kind that stirs up the wrath of dressmakers."
"Let us stop talking. I cannot stay here any longer," she said. I could see that she stood up.
"Yes, let us put an end to it. I give up trying for you, but not loving you. I renounce the idea of vengeance, as I have told you. But understand, however, that this is only a truce. My hopes that you will love me some day will not be banished. Separated from you, I shall wait with patience for a time when our paths shall cross again and I shall offer you the poor heart that you have coldly trampled upon."