"Well now, Enrique, how do you like my Little Goldie? I bet you never saw anything like her, back home!" Triumphantly he added: "She doesn't cost much, either. When I first met her, I asked: 'What shall I give you?' She answered: 'A box at the Teatro Real.' Why, that's a bagatelle! Only a little more than thirteen hundred pesetas for fourteen plays. And here we are. I tell you the little lady doesn't ask much."
Darlés answered nothing. His emotions choked him—the novelty of this new world that till now he had not even known by hearsay; a topsy-turvy, unmoral world where, as in art, beauty formed the only criterion of worth; a world where women sold themselves for an opera-box.
All this time Alicia Pardo had been studying Enrique. The downright frankness of her look was alarming in its amusement. Enrique's extreme youth; the simplicity of his answers; the Apollo-like perfection of his features; the obsidian hue of his wavy hair which marked him as from the south of Spain; the black ardor of eyes, that in their eager curiosity contrasted with the boyish smoothness of his face; yes, even his proneness to blush, had all greatly interested her. Above all, Alicia found her attention wakened by the artistic spirit in him, which had wept at the sound of the music. Alicia had never seen men weep except through jealousy, or through some other even baser and more ignoble emotion. Therefore in the tears of this boy she discovered something wonderful and great.
And through her little head, all filled with curious whims, the idea drifted that it would be passing strange and sweet to let herself be loved by such a boy. Suddenly she exclaimed:
"What are you doing in Madrid?"
"I'm studying."
"Ah, indeed? A student, eh? I read a novel, a while ago, that I liked very much indeed. The hero was a student. Quite a coincidence, eh?"
Darlés nodded "Yes." The childish simplicity of the remark amazed him. Goldie went on:
"How old are you?"
"Twenty."