Darlés blushed, and found nothing to say. Men without money are contemptible; and as Alicia did not even deign to look at him, the student knew he had lost her. Dear Lord, if there had only been some devil's bank where lovers might barter off the years of their life, for money, gladly would he have sold his whole existence for those curséd seventy-five pesetas!
Tired of arguing, the peddler gathered up her things and packed them into her valise. The conversation drifted off to other things. The women began talking about jewels. Candelas showed a brooch that had been given her. Clotilde offered the girls a necklace.
"If you'd like to see it, I'll bring it," said she. "I've got it at home."
Alicia sighed deeply; and that long sigh, broken like a child's, expressed enormous grief. She said:
"I'm in love with a necklace in a shop on Calle Mayor, and I don't want any other. I dream about it all the time. I never saw anything so wonderful! I tell you the man who gives me that, can have me."
"How much is it?"
"Fifteen thousand pesetas."
Then she fixed an inscrutable look on Darlés, and added:
"I think this gentleman here is going to get it for me. Aren't you, Enrique?"
Candelas was about to laugh, but checked herself. Her penetrating eyes had just seen in the student's congested face something of the terrific inner struggle now possessing him. Darlés was no longer able to contain himself. He got up to leave, and his eyes showed such despair and shame that Alicia took pity on him.