Elena, by a kind of intuition, like the instinctive alarm of an animal when something hostile is approaching it, guessed that it was she who was coming before she saw her. Without waiting for the horse to stop, the reckless young rider slipped out of the saddle to the ground. Then, with the slow gait of one who has not walked for some hours and is surprised by the strange hard feel of the ground, she approached Elena.
“Señora, a word with you, only one!”
She stepped in between Elena and the cart, cutting her off.
In spite of her cold hauteur Elena was startled by the girl’s hostile eyes. However, she tried to preserve her impressive calm, and with a gesture seemed to inquire,
“Can it really be me you want?”
Celinda, quick enough to understand her, replied with a nod. As the marquesa lifted her hand, in an affectation of queenliness, giving the girl permission to speak, Celinda asked in a tone that was sharp and resonant with hate,
“Haven’t you enough with all these men you are driving mad? Do you have to take away those who belong to other women too?”
Elena offered nothing by way of reply but a withering glance that swept the girl from head to foot. Surely she was sufficiently superior to crush the impudent young thing with a look....
“I don’t know you,” Elena was forced to say as the girl still barred her passage. “Besides there are such differences in rank and education separating us that it is useless for me to try to talk to you.”
She tried then to brush Celinda aside; but the girl, irritated beyond bearing by her contemptuous glance, raised the small riding whip she held in her left hand.