He raised his head and found Leonora looking at him, her eyes ablaze with anger and offended dignity.
"I'm never taken by force," she said coldly. "I give myself ... if I feel like it."
And in the gesture of scorn and rage with which she dismissed him, Rafael thought he caught a trace of loathing at some memory of Boldini—that repugnant lecher, who had been the only person in the world to win her by violence.
Rafael tried to stammer an excuse, but that hateful association of the brutal scene rendered her implacable.
"Go! Go, or I'll beat you again!... And never come back!"
And to emphasize the words, as Rafael, humiliated and covered with dirt, was leaving the garden, she shut the gate behind him with such a violent slam that the bars almost went flying.
IV
Doña Bernarda was much pleased with Rafael. The angry glances, the gestures of impatience, the wordless arguments between mother and son, which the household had formerly witnessed in such terror, had come to an end.
The boy had not been visiting the Blue House for some time. She knew that with absolute certainty, thanks to the gratuitous espionage conducted for her by persons attached to the Brull family. He scarcely ever left the house; a few moments at the Club after lunch; and the rest of the day in the dining-room, with her and family friends; or else, shut up in his room, with his books, probably, which the austere señora revered with the superstitious awe of ignorance.