Manuel laughed bitterly. "So you've got it too! But I went to the girl herself, as you would have done if you hadn't been such a ninny; but you're always a ninny. What do you suppose she said to me—yes, Garda herself?" he went on, furiously, dropping, in the recital of his wrongs, even the pleasure of abusing his friend. "Here I only went to her because she is so alone now, so unhappy, it was pure compassion on my part; I made sacrifices, sacrifices, I tell you, and poignant ones!—I intended to see the world first. Am I not in the flower of my youth—I ask you that? Am I not keenly pleasing? But—everybody knows! Well, was she grateful? I leave you to judge! She deliberately said—yes, in so many words—that she had never cared for me, when the whole world knows she has cared to distraction, to frenzy. And she had the effrontery to add that the only person she cared for—and for him she cared 'day and night'—was that—that—" In his rage Manuel could not speak the name, but he seized a great knife with a sharp edge, and cut straight through a book which was lying on the table. "There!" he cried, throwing the severed leaves in handfuls about the room, "that is how I will serve him—Spenser-r-r-r! Let him come on!" And he continued to throw the papers wildly.
Torres was shocked. Not at the sight of his friend displaying his vengeance in that childish fashion; he had long considered Manuel hopelessly undignified. His shock came from the idea of a Señorita Duero having been spoken to on such a subject, spoken to directly! Of course she had rejected Manuel (it would always be of course that she should reject Manuel), but the idea of her having been forced to do so by word of mouth—being deprived of the delicate privilege of expressing herself through her proper guardian! As to the story that she was thinking of some one else, "day and night," he paid no heed to it; that was plainly Manuel's fiction. No one could for a moment believe that the señorita thought of any one long after sunset—say half-past seven or eight; anything else would be clearly improper.
"If you had given the subject a deeper consideration, Manuel—" he began.
But Manuel was still engaged with the book; he was now slicing the cover. "Spenser-r-r-r-r!"
Torres went towards him, and put out his forefinger with an impressive gesture. "I say if you had given the subject a deeper consideration, Manuel—"
"Scat!" said Manuel.
"What?" said the Cuban.
"Scat! scat! You're no better than an old tabby."
Torres looked at him solemnly. Then he put up his finger again. "It was not the proper course, Manuel," he began, a third time. "If you had given—"
"Oh, go to the devil!" cried Manuel, with a sort of howl, leaping towards him with the knife.