"I do not disturb myself for such little things, dear, because I have trained myself in a manner different from the women of your province. If there they still go on spinning by the fireside, in the rest of the world they hold a more brilliant position. Here is a sailor," she added, indicating me, "who has travelled much, and can confirm this."
I bowed and murmured some courteous phrases.
"Well, all this does not hinder my admiring your ability," went on Retamoso in a tone of exaggerated adulation. "Does not all the world know it in Valencia? Am I to be the only one who does not, or pretends not to know it? How many women might be educated like you, and yet not have the capacity to accomplish in a month what you do in a day!"
"Tell me, Ribot," queried Doña Clara, addressing me as if she had not heard her husband, who went on murmuring flattering phrases, opening his eyes wide and arching his eyebrows to express the admiration which possessed him, "among all the many ports that you have visited, have you not met women with as much business faculty as men, or more?"
"I have known some women at the head of powerful commercial houses, directing with much wisdom, carrying on correspondences in several languages, and keeping their books with perfect exactitude. But—I confess freely that a woman engaging in industrial speculations, or inclined to politics or business, appears to me like a princess with a taste for selling matches and newspapers in the streets."
"What's this!" exclaimed Doña Clara, throwing up her Roman head. "Then you believe that the position of woman is nothing more than that of a domestic animal, caressed or beaten by man, according to his caprice? Woman should, in this view, remain always in complete ignorance, without studying, without instruction!"
"Let her be instructed as much as she likes," I replied, "but in my notion woman has no need of learning anything, because she knows everything——"
"Just so!" interrupted Retamoso with enthusiasm. "That has always been my opinion. Isabelita," he went on, turning to his daughter, "have I not said to you a thousand times that your mamma knows everything before having to learn it?"
I saw a smile flit over Martí's lips. Cristina rose from the piano where she had been sitting and went out of the room.
"I do not understand what you wish to say," declared Doña Clara, with a certain acerbity.