“Willingly,” agreed Ibarra, “especially as I have something to say this very minute to those young people in that group over there.” He arose with the agreement that his opponent should have a quarter of an hour.
Iday had the round card on which were written the forty-eight questions, while Albino held the book of answers.
“A lie! It’s not so!” cried Sinang, half in tears.
“What’s the matter?” asked Maria Clara.
“Just imagine, I asked, ‘When shall I have some sense?’ I threw the dice and that worn-out priest read from the book, ‘When the frogs raise hair.’ What do you think of that?” As she said this, Sinang made a grimace at the laughing ex-theological student.
“Who told you to ask that question?” her cousin Victoria asked her. “To ask it is enough to deserve such an answer.”
“You ask a question,” they said to Ibarra, offering him the wheel. “We’re decided that whoever gets the best answer shall receive a present from the rest. Each of us has already had a question.”
“Who got the best answer?”
“Maria Clara, Maria Clara!” replied Sinang. “We made her ask, willy-nilly, ‘Is your sweetheart faithful and constant?’ And the book answered—”
But here the blushing Maria Clara put her hands over Sinang’s mouth so that she could not finish.