She lifts her eyebrows half incredulously, all bewitchingly.
"At five pesetas, señor."
He runs his hand through his black hair in chivalrous distress.
"But the peerless work, señorita! And this other, too! I sacrifice it at four pesetas."
She touches both fans lightly.
"You will let us have the two at seven pesetas, señor?"
Her eyes dance over his confusion. He catches the gleam, laughs back, throws up his hands.
"Bueno, señorita. At what you please."
It takes a Spaniard to depict a throng of Spanish ladies,—"fiery carnations or starry jasmine in their hair, cheeks like blush roses, eyes black or blue, with lashes quivering like butterflies; cherry lips, a glance as fickle as the light nod of a flower in the wind, and smiles that reveal teeth like pearls; the all-pervading fan with its wordless telegraphy in a thousand colors." In such a throng one sees not only the typical "eyes of midnight," but those "emerald eyes" which Cervantes knew, and veritable pansy-colored eyes dancing with more than pansy mischief. But the voices! In curious contrast to the tones of Spanish men, soft, coaxing, caressing, the voices of the women are too often high and harsh, suggesting, in moments of excitement, the scream of the Andalusian parrot. "O Jesus, what a fetching hat! The feather, the feather, see, see, see, see the feather! Mary Most Pure, but it must have cost four or five pesetas! Ah, my God, don't I wish it were mine!" The speaker who gets the lead in a chattering knot of Spanish women is a prodigy not only of volubility, but of general muscular action. She keeps time to her shrill music with hands, fan, elbows, shoulders, eyebrows, knees. She dashes her sentences with inarticulate whirs and whistles, and countless pious interjections: Gracias á Dios! Santa Maria! O Dios mio! The others, out-screamed and out-gesticulated, clutch at her, shriek at her, fly at her, and still, by some mysterious genius, maintain courtesy, grace, and dignity through it all. Yet it is true that the vulgar-rich variety is especially obnoxious among Spaniards. An overdressed Spanish woman is frightfully overdressed, her voice is maddening, her gusts of mirth and anger are painfully uncontrolled. This, however, is the exception, and refinement the rule.
The legendary Spanish lady is forever sitting at a barred window, or leaning from a balcony, coquetting with a fan and dropping arch responses to the "caramel phrases" of her guitar-tinkling cavalier.