"Folly! d'ye call it?" he repeated.
"Yes, folly," laughed his wife; "I would style the Zambo 'your majesty,' if I wanted him." And she went on with her smoking and swinging. The Spaniard took a fresh cigar out of the mulatto's box, lit it, and soon enveloped himself and his cocked hat in a cloud of vapour.
The truce between the contending parties lasted several minutes, during which the Spaniard sat up in his bed without any other clothing than a flannel shirt and the cocked hat aforesaid, and his lady lay quiescent in her hammock. She was the first to break silence.
"Matanzas, you are an old fool," cried she, "and if I were Don Toro"——
"Don him no Dons!" interrupted her husband. "He has no right to them. Ah! oh!" groaned the suffering wretch. "No, never will we give to a miserable Zambo the title of Señor; we, whose ancestors were at the fight of Roncesvalles. And the dog expects that we should stand up on his entrance, as before a viejo Cristiano, and greet him as Señor!"
"The standing up might be dispensed with," rejoined the lady, "seeing that you are not able to do it."
"We call the Zambo Don!" reiterated the Spaniard, "and stand up on his entrance! Madre de Dios, what insolence! No, Señora, that shall never be," continued he with much solemnity. "By the Virgen de los Remedios, and the most excellent Sant Jago, that shall never be! Were we a thousand times as ill, and this Zambo could cure us by the mere touch of his staff, as Señor Don Moses did the Israelites—Doña Anna," said the man, with an assumption of immense dignity, "we would rather die a thousand deaths that call the Zambo Señor, or stand up before him. We are a viejo Cristiano, y basta! Enough! I have spoken."
During this declaration of his principles, the Spaniard's cigar had gone out; he lit another, pressed down his huge cocked hat deeper upon his forehead, took a long cross-hilted dagger from the wall, with the words, "Ven, mi querida Virgen!" and kissing the sacred emblem, laid it before him. Husband and wife had quarrelled themselves weary, and now remained silent.
The dispute seemed to have excited no interest in the saloon and mirador, where the young ladies were still lounging, yawning, and smoking; their features wearing that disagreeable relaxed expression which is frequently to be observed in the countenances of Mexican women. A moment, however, was sufficient to change the scene. The Señorita Ximene had gazed awhile, with the drooping underlip and careless glance of indifference, upon a number of persons who were coming up the Tacuba Street, and who, to judge from their garb, were for the most part members of the cinco gremios, the five guilds or handicrafts. On a sudden, however, her eyes lost their vague and languid look, and became fixed and sparkling; her lips were protruded as if inviting a kiss; her hand was extended, her mantilla fell, as of itself, into graceful folds—it was but an instant, and the damsel was completely transformed. Her two companions had scarcely remarked this change, when they in their turn underwent a like metamorphosis; their countenance became all animation, their manner fascination itself; they were no longer the same beings.
"Don Pinto y un superbo hombre!" whispered Ximene.