Martí returned, and his Aunt Clara, without giving up her newspaper, questioned him.
"How is it with olives, now, Emilio? Have they not risen twenty centimos this week?"
"Yes, aunt, I am informed that they have risen and will rise still further."
"It couldn't be otherwise," she exclaimed in triumphant tones. "I told Retamoso so last month, and he paid no attention to me. He is obstinate, like a good Galician, and so short-sighted in business that he can scarcely see the length of his nose. If it weren't for me, I believe that he would soon go into bankruptcy."
The voice of the lady was vibrant and powerful; her sculptural head raised itself so proudly when she spoke, her aquiline nose was held so high, and her eyes flashed so imposingly that in her presence one might fancy himself transported to the heroic age of the Roman republic. Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, could not have been more severe and majestic.
Martí coughed, to avoid replying, desiring neither to contradict his aunt nor to offend his uncle.
"And what do you say to the fall in cocoa?" she continued, with the heroic accent that might be employed in asking a consul about a legion surprised and overwhelmed by the Gauls.
Martí contented himself with shrugging his shoulders.
"Yet he had the assurance to deny that it is anything serious," she continued with increasing scorn. "It could only be hid from a man of the narrowest, most limited judgment, altogether unadapted to ventures in the wholesale trade. When I saw the Ibarra steamers arriving, loaded with Guayaquil, I said to myself, 'Yes, indeed, this staple is bound to fall.'"
"Uncle Diego knows how to tell where the shoe pinches, all the same," Martí ventured to remark.