Leon was on the point of saying: “Well then I do.” But there are cases in which the truth is a form of murder; when it is baser than a lie.
“Well then,” he said, “no.”
“Your face betrays you, it is false!” said María starting up.
“My face?”
“You never used to tell lies.... I know that you never told lies. But this minute you prove to me that you have lost even that grace!”
Leon made no reply, and María, after a short pause, went on:
“I have no further business here....” Still he said nothing; he did not even look at her. “None, none,” she said. “I blush to think that I should ever have crossed the threshold of this abode of scandal and wickedness.”
She moistened her parched lips with her tongue, but there was a bitter dryness on both, compared to which aloes are as honey for sweetness. Her impulse was to spit out something ... to spit out that other She whose name was as the savour of fruits plucked in the court of hell. She stammered some inarticulate words and bit her lips till the blood came.
“It is a shame ... a disgrace!” she muttered. “To have fallen to such depths ... to have flung myself at the feet of this wretch ... a woman like me ... a woman!...” She was too angry to shed tears—even tears of rage. “Scorned ... despised....”
“Despised, no,” said her husband, moving towards her with an impulse of generosity.