“Why did he not throw it to Jovita?” she said, and with a cruel, careless little movement she swept the devisa from her knee; it fell, and she set her foot upon it.
“She has trodden upon it,” said old Jovita. “She has done it for pride, and to show herself above others. She is ready for the devil. Some one should beat her.”
“It was the devisa,” gasped José. “Sebastiano.”
Pepita left her seat. It seemed as if something strange must have happened to her. The crimson had leaped to her cheeks, and her eyes were ablaze.
“What is it to me, his devisa?” she said. “I do not want it. I will not have it. Let him throw a thousand, and I will tread upon them all, one after the other. Let it lie in the dirt. Let him give it to those others, those women who want it—and him.” She would go home at once; not to the pleasure-gardens, not anywhere but back to the cottage; and José followed her meekly, struck dumb. He had seen her wilful, capricious, childishly passionate, a little hard to understand, many times before, but never like this. What had occurred to her? What had Sebastiano done?
Jovita had picked up the knot of gay ribbon and brushed the dust off it, and carried it home with her, grumbling fiercely. She was never averse to grumbling a little, and here, the saints knew, was cause.
“For pride,” she kept repeating; “for pride, and to show that others are beneath her! Mother of God! the king himself is not good enough for her! Let him come and pray upon his knees that she will go to the palace and wear a crown, and he will see what she will say! It is these fools of men who spoil her, as if there had never been a pretty face before. Let them treat her as she treats them, and she will be humble enough. She was always one of the devil’s children with her pride!”
But Pepita, who heard it all, said nothing, though once or twice she gave her little mocking laugh.