"Nothing, little pearl. My little Camila of Camilas, nothing."
"There was something you didn't like. Ugly fault-finding thing that you are. Come on now, what was it? Look, I'm ready."
"No, little fish. Adorable morning star, I suppose you did as well as you could."
The suggestion that she was a limited artist and that certain felicities would be forever closed to her never failed to make Camila frantic. She would burst into tears: "I wish I had never known you. You poison my whole life. You just think I did badly. It pleases you to pretend that I was bad. All right then, be quiet."
Uncle Pio went on whistling.
"The fact is I know I was weak to-night, and don't need you to tell me so. So there. Now go away. I don't want to see you around. It's hard enough to play that part without coming back and finding you this way."
Suddenly Uncle Pio would lean forward and ask with angry intensity: "Why did you take that speech to the prisoner so fast?"
More tears from the Perichole: "Oh God, let me die in peace! One day you tell me to go faster and another to go slower. Anyway I shall be crazy in a year or two and then it won't matter."
More whistling.
"Besides the audience applauded as never before. Do you hear me? As never before. There! Too fast or too slow is nothing to them. They wept. I was divine. That's all I care for. Now be silent. Be silent."