Sudden anger had endowed his face with virile and aggressive tension. Forehead and lips grew pale. Candelas, good-natured in a careless way, tried to salve his misery.
"You'd better leave us women alone," said she. "We're a bad lot. Believe me, the best of us, the most saintly of us, isn't worth any man's sacrificing himself for."
Alicia interrupted her friend, exclaiming:
"What a little fool you are, to be sure! We were only joking. Do you think Enrique would really do any such crazy thing for me? What nonsense!"
Proudly the student repeated:
"¿Quién sabe?"
Then, after a little silence, he added:
"I don't know what makes you talk that way. You've never proved me. You don't know what kind of a man I am!"
Two months earlier, the laughing, mocking words of these girls would have disconcerted him. But now he felt himself transfigured; he felt new, vigorous ardors in his blood. He no longer doubted. An extraordinary dominating concept of his own person had taken possession of him; and this concept of his youth and boldness, of his strength and courage, had exalted him like strong drink. In a single moment the youth had grown to be a man.