Pedro turned to him with a dark scowl.
A young lady, closely veiled, was hanging on his arm.
"Perez—dear Perez!" said she, entreatingly, and, with a voice of great sweetness, added, "Senor, do not crush me so, if you please."
"Do I incommode you, senora?" stammered Pedro.
"Very much indeed."
"Pardon me—I shall make room."
And he did so by lurching forward and squeezing an old duenna against a pillar, where she was nearly suffocated by his huge back, and from whence he began to eye—almost ogle—the young lady who had spoken.
Her features, though partially hidden by a black lace veil, were charming and soft, and the pressure of the crowd had deranged it so far as to permit Pedro's bold and wandering eye to see enough of an adorable white neck and swelling bust to make him long to look on more.
Her nostrils and lips in contour were singularly fine, her tresses were of a rich ripply brown, and a valuable rosary was in her pretty hands, which were cased in well-fitting gloves of lavender-coloured kid.
Pedro was smitten. He continued to ogle and leer, and make a cushion of the old lady behind, in a mode of which the young girl was all unconscious, for she never looked at him once, though her male companion, whom she had named Perez, felt undisguised anger and uneasiness from time to time.