"You—committed that—robbery in the Calle Mayor?"
"Yes."
Alicia looked exultingly at Candelas, as if asking her to take full cognizance of this exploit of hers. Her expression showed the same kind of pride that people sometimes manifest when they are exhibiting a work of art. She had just won a great triumph, because men dare such crimes only for women capable of inspiring mad love. Then the girl lowered her head again, to look more carefully at the student's clothing; and as she found it all stained with blood she felt a new attack of nausea. The contrast was too sharp between the hot, sickening air of that long-closed room and the life-giving breeze of the street.
"Shall I open the window?" asked she.
"No, no," murmured Enrique. "I'm very weak. The cold would kill me."
Alicia, seated on the bed—that poor bed one night perfumed with violets by her body—silently looked at him. A broad-brimmed crimson hat, decked with a splendid white plume, shaded her pale face. Her green eyes shone wickedly in the livid, bluish circles under them. The free-and-easy grace of her manner, the childish shortness of her waist, the robust fullness of her hips and breast, and the uneasiness with which her impatient, dancing little feet tapped the floor as if they wanted to run away, strongly contrasted with the ugliness of the room—the bare, half-furnished room heavy with the odors of death.
Candelas seemed truly moved. But Alicia felt as if she were choking. The terrible nausea kept gaining on her. Now and then she raised her lace handkerchief to her pleasure-loving nose—her nose which all the afternoon had breathed the free, fresh air of the race-track. Her growing disgust overcame her distress. She could not weep. And after all, why should she? Just so she could get away from there quickly, little cared she whether Enrique lived a few hours more or less. In her abysmal ingratitude, Alicia Pardo wondered that women could love a man so much as to kiss his dead lips.
Suddenly, anxious to have it all over, she asked:
"But—how did they wound you?"
Enrique opened his eyes again, and then his lips.