And as if he were angry that that little girl without any voice and without any sense of shame, should be compared to the sweet Josephina, he commented with sarcastic admiration on all the cynical expressions with which she ended her couplets.
"Very pretty! Very refined!"
But Renovales, deaf to these ironical remarks, absorbed in the contemplation of "Fregolina," kept on poking him and whispering:
"It's she, isn't it? Just exactly; the same body. And besides, the girl has some talent; she's funny."
Cotoner nodded ironically: "Yes, very." And when he found that Mariano wanted to stay for the next act and did not move from his seat, he though of leaving him. Finally he stayed, stretching out in his seat with the determination to have a nap, lulled by the music and the cries of the audience.
An impatient hand aroused him from his comfortable doze. "Pepe, Pepe." He shook his head and opened his eyes ill-naturedly. "What's the matter?" In Renovales' face he saw a honeyed, treacherous smile, some folly that he wanted to propose in the most pleasing manner.
"I thought we might go behind the scenes for a minute: we could see her at close range."
His friend answered him indignantly. Mariano thought he was a young buck; he forgot how he looked. That woman would laugh at them, she would assume the air of the Chaste Susanna, besieged by the two old men.
Renovales was silent, but in a little while he once more aroused his friend from his nap.
"You might go in alone, Pepe. You know more about these things than I do. You are more daring. You might tell her that I want to paint her portrait. Think, a portrait with my signature!"