Nieves watched the scene with amazement. The young ladies, with their large chignons and their clusters of curls, their faces daubed with coarse rice-powder, their bodices cut low around the throat, their long trains of cheap materials, continually trodden upon and torn by the heavy boots of the gallants, their clumsy, tastelessly arranged flowers, and their short-wristed gloves of thick kid, too small for their hands, all seemed to her strange and laughable. She remembered Agonde's descriptions, the toilet made in the pine grove, and fanned herself with her large black fan as if to drive off the pestilent air in which the whirl of the dance enveloped her. The dancers pursued their task earnestly, diligently, as if they were contending for a prize to be awarded to the one who should first get out of breath, moving, not with their own motion only, but impelled by the jostling, pushing, and crowding of those around them. And Nieves, accustomed to the elegant and measured dancing of the soirées, wondered at the courage and resolution displayed by the dancers of Vilamorta. Some of the girls, whose flounces had been torn by some gallant's boot-heel, turned up their skirts, quickly tore off the whole trimming, rolled it into a ball, which they threw into a corner, and then returned, smiling and contented, to the arms of their partners. In vain the men wiped the perspiration from their faces; their collars and shirt-fronts grew limp, their hair clung to their foreheads; the silk bodices of the ladies began to show stains of perspiration, and the marks of their partners' hands. And the gymnastics continued, and the dust and the particles of perspiration vitiated the atmosphere, and the floor of the room trembled. There were handsome couples, blooming girls and gallant young men, who danced with the healthy gayety of youth, with sparkling eyes, overflowing with animation; and there were ridiculous couples, short men and tall women, stout women and beardless boys, a baldheaded old man and a stout, middle-aged woman. There were brothers who danced with their sisters through shyness, because they had not the courage to invite other young ladies to dance, and the secretary of the town council, married for many years to a rich Orensen who was old and very jealous, danced all the evening with his wife, dancing polkas and waltzes in the time of a habanera to keep from dying by asphyxiation.
When Nieves entered the ballroom, the other women looked at her, first with curiosity, then with surprise. How strange to come so simply dressed! Not to wear a train a yard and a half long, nor a flower in her hair, nor bracelets nor satin shoes. Two or three ladies from Orense, who had cherished the expectation of making a sensation in the ball of Vilamorta, began to whisper among themselves, criticising the artistic negligence of her attire, the modesty of the white, high-necked bodice, and the grace of the small head, with its elegantly arranged hair, vaporous as the engravings in La Illustracion. The Orensens determined to copy the fashion-plate, the Vilamortans and the women of the Border, on the contrary, criticised the Minister's lady bitterly.
"She is dressed almost as if she would dress at home."
"She does it because she doesn't want to wear her good clothes here. Of course for a ball here——She thinks probably that we know nothing. But she might at least have dressed her hair a little better. And how easy it is to see that she is bored; look, why, she seems to be asleep."
"And a little while ago she seemed as if she couldn't sit still a moment—she kept tapping the floor with her foot as if she were impatient to be gone."
And it was true; Nieves was bored. And if the young ladies who censured her could only have known the cause!
She could see Segundo nowhere, anxiously as she looked for him, at first with furtive glances, then openly and without disguise. At last García came to salute her, and then she could restrain herself no longer, and making an effort to speak in a natural and easy tone, she asked:
"And the boy? It is a wonder he is not here."
"Who? Segundo? Segundo is—so eccentric. If you could only guess what he is doing now. Reading verses or composing them. We must leave him to his whims."
And the lawyer waved his hands with a gesture that seemed to say that the eccentricities of genius must be respected, while in his own mind he said: