Then the furnishings of the little boudoir vanished under a many-colored flood of showy silks—green, brown, blue—which, as they were spread out, diffused a most delightful perfume of cleanness. As if under some magic spell, Alicia and Candelas fell a prey to the intense, acquisitive passion that tortures women in front of shop-windows. The two girls vied in asking the price of every treasure.
"This petticoat here, how much?"
"Seeing it's you, a hundred pesetas."
"And that heliotrope one?"
"Seventy-five. Just take a good look at it. Wonderful!"
With amazement, Enrique studied this profusion of elegance and luxury. He had never even dreamed civilization wove so many refinements about the art of love. And as his frank eyes observed these petticoats that gently rustled, or took in the lace of these night-dresses—majestically full as senatorial togas—he sadly recalled the poor little white chemises and coarse underwear lacking in all adornment, that the women of his home-town hung out to dry on their clothes-lines.
Now a new detail came to increase his misery. The peddler and Alicia were arguing excitedly over the price of the heliotrope petticoat. Clotilde wanted seventy-five pesetas, and the young woman vowed she couldn't go over fifty. The peddler insisted:
"You'd better make up your mind to take it, because you won't get such a bargain anywhere else. I'm only selling it at this price just to please you, but I'm not making a penny on the deal."
Then she turned to Enrique, and added:
"Come now, this gentleman will buy it for you!"