“Know that I demean myself in speaking to you; persons of position like me ought not! Will you wash my clothes? I will pay you well. Do you suppose I do not know you are a washerwoman?”
Doña Consolacion sat erect. To be called a washerwoman had wounded her.
“And do you think we don’t know who you are?” she retorted. “My husband has told me! Señora, I, at least——”
But she could not be heard. Doña Victorina, wildly shaking her fists, screamed out:
“Come down, you old hussy, come down and let me tear your beautiful eyes out!”
Rapidly the medusa disappeared from the window; more rapidly yet she came running down the steps, brandishing her husband’s terrible whip. Don Tiburcio, supplicating both, threw himself between, but he could not have prevented the combat, had not the alférez arrived.
“Well, well, señoras!—Don Tiburcio!”
“Give your wife a little more breeding, buy her more beautiful clothes, and if you haven’t the money, steal it from the people of the pueblo; you have soldiers for that!” cried Doña Victorina.
“Señora,” said the alférez, furious, “it is fortunate that I remember you are a woman; if I didn’t, I should trample you down, with all your curls and ribbons!”
“Se—señor alférez!”