"But in Valencia I prefer the women to the sea," I remarked, having reached too lively a stage.
"I can believe it," she responded, smiling. "Oh, they are very beautiful. I have a little cousin named Isabel who is truly perfection. What eyes that child has!"
"Are they more beautiful than yours?" I asked presumptuously.
"Oh, mine are of no account," she answered with a blush.
"Of no account?" I questioned with astonishment. "Indeed, there are no others so bewitching on all this eastern coast, among all the beautiful ones that there abound. They are two stars of heaven! They are a happy dream from which one would never wish to awake!"
She instantly became serious. She kept silence for a while, without raising her eyes from the tablecloth. Then she said with an affected indifference, not free from severity:
"You have breakfasted fairly well, have you not? But on board the food is better than at hotels."
I kept silent for a while, in turn. Without responding to her question, after a moment I said:
"Pardon me. We sailors express ourselves too frankly. We are not versed in etiquette, but our intentions must excuse us. Mine were not to say anything impertinent."
She was immediately mollified, and we continued our chat with the same cordiality until the end of the breakfast.