"I thought so," she answered quietly, a peculiar smile illumining her dark countenance as she seated herself in the doorway of the refectory which opened on the patio, and disposed herself comfortably, preparatory to the interesting bit of gossip which she intended to screw out of her husband.
She was of medium height, of the spare, slender type, and must have been attractive in her youth, for even now, in spite of middle age, she was comely to look upon. She wore a red rose in her black hair, while a partially drooping eyelid gave a piquant, coquettish expression to her face.
"Holy Virgin! but this is interesting!" she went on after a pause. "The Señor in love, really in love!" and she laughed quietly to herself, while she took a pinch of tobacco and a leaf of brown paper from the pocket of her apron and began rolling a cigarette.
"Bah!" said Concho, accompanying the exclamation with a shrug of the shoulders. "You women are always imagining things which do not exist. Have we not often seen the Señor like this before? Has he not completely spoiled the Señoritas of the town with his flowers? He's bored. He's trying to amuse himself, that's all."
"And didst thou not say," continued Anita, without heeding his remarks, regarding him out of the corners of her eyes while lighting her cigarette, "that she is not quite so tall as the other one, but equally beautiful in her way; that she is pink and white at one and the same moment, just like a half-blown rose, and soft and satiny as the down on a swan's neck?"
"It is all true, Anita mia, she is even that and more!" responded Concho with warmth. "She is worth a journey to the Posada to see, but then, what is that—what are a few wisps of flowers?"
"Wisps? Armfuls, thou meanest, Concho! When did the Señor ever lavish so many flowers upon one woman before? He told me they were for the hospital," she chuckled, "but I have always been able to tell whether the Señor was speaking the truth or not. Thou knowest the way he has of saying the opposite to that which he means," and she blew a ring of smoke into the still air and watched it as it floated upwards.
"Concho," she said after some moments' reflection, "thou art a fool! I always said thou wert, and now I know it. The hospital—bah! How could he have ever thought me so simple?" she exclaimed in a tone of mingled sarcasm and disgust. "I tell thee, Concho, all women are the same either on this side of the world or the other. The one thou hast just described to me is the most dangerous of all women for a man like the Señor to meet. That is, if she is clever," she added. "But have we not all heard how clever and beautiful the
Americana Señoritas are?"
"Aye, there is nothing to compare with them in the whole land, with the exception of the Chiquita, of course," replied Concho.