"How should it be cotton, woman, how should it be cotton?" he cried in his shrill voice, putting the cloth close to the buyer's face. Cansin appeared so angry that Leocadia did not venture to address him; she passed on, quickening her steps. She thought of her other suitor, the tavern-keeper. But she suddenly remembered, with a feeling of repulsion, his thick lips, his cheeks that seemed to drip blood. Turning over in her mind every possible means by which she might obtain the money she needed, a thought occurred to her. She rejected it, she weighed it, she accepted it. Quickening her pace, she walked toward the abode of the lawyer García.
At her first knock Aunt Gáspara opened the door. What a meaning contraction of the brow and lips, what a sour face greeted her! Leocadia, abashed and covered with confusion, stood still on the threshold. The old woman, like a vigilant watch-dog, barred the entrance, ready to bark or bite at the first sign of danger.
"What did you want?" she growled.
"To speak to Don Justo. May I?" said the schoolmistress humbly.
"I don't know. I'll see."
And the dragon without further ceremony shut the door in Leocadia's face. Leocadia waited. At the end of ten minutes a harsh voice called to her:
"Come on!"
The heart of the schoolmistress bounded within her. To go through the house in which Segundo was born! It was dark and shabby, cold and bare, like the abode of a miser, in which the furniture is made to do service until it falls to pieces with old age. Crossing a hall, Leocadia saw through a half-open door some garments belonging to Segundo hanging on a peg, and recognized them with a secret thrill. At the end of the hall was the lawyer's office, an ill-kept, untidy room, full of papers and dusty and uninteresting-looking books. Aunt Gáspara withdrew, and Leocadia remained standing before the lawyer, who, without inviting her to be seated, said to her with a suspicious and hostile air, and in the severe tones of a judge:
"And what can I do for you, Señora Doña Leocadia?"
A formula accompanied inwardly by the observation: