"The Señor should not excite himself. It is bad to excite oneself. There was the woodcutter over at La Floresta—"
"To hell with the woodcutter! Where is that Truhan?" Then Escobeda began to curse Guillermina. He cursed her until he foamed at the mouth, his gold earrings shaking in his ears, his eyes bloodshot, his lips sending flecks of foam upon her gown. He cursed her father and her mother, her grandfather and her grandmother, her great-grandfather and great-grandmother, which was quite a superfluity in the way of cursing, as Guillermina had no proof positive that she had ever possessed more than one parent. He cursed her brothers and sisters, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins, her nephews and nieces.
"The Señor wastes some very good breath," remarked Guillermina in a perfectly imperturbable manner. "I have none of those people."
Escobeda turned on her in renewed frenzy. The vile words rolled out of his mouth like a stream over high rocks. He took a fresh breath and cursed anew. As he had begun with her ancestors, so he continued with her descendants, the children whom she had borne, and those whom she was likely to bear.
"The good God save us!" ejaculated old Guillermina. And still Escobeda cursed on, his fury now falling upon her relationships in all their ramifications, and in all their branches.
"Ay de mi! The gracious Señor wastes his time. If the gracious Señor should rest a little, he could start with a fresh breath."
As Guillermina spoke, she rearranged the curtain folds, smoothed and shook the silken pillows, and laid them straight and in place. She kept her station as near the middle of the sunken door as possible.
Again he thundered at her the question as to where the fugitives had found refuge. Guillermina, brave outwardly, was trembling inwardly for the safety of her beloved Don Gil. The young Señora was all very well, she might grow to care for her in time, but her little Gil, whom she had taken from the doctor's arms, whom she had nursed on her knee with her own little Antonio, who lay under the trees on the hillside yonder—she must gain time.
"Does not the Señor know that the Señor Don Gil Silencio-y-Estrada and the little Señora have gone to heaven?"