lice:

"You know, dear, I asked him to get it for me."

"Yes, I know, I remember," said Enrique.

He spoke sadly. Alicia began to laugh.

"Well, how about it? Are you really thinking of giving it to me?"

"_?Quien sabe?_"

Sudden anger had endowed his face with virile and aggressive tension.
Forehead and lips grew pale. Candelas, good-natured in a careless way,
tried to salve his misery.

"You'd better leave us women alone," said she. "We're a bad lot. Believe
me, the best of us, the most saintly of us, isn't worth any man's
sacrificing himself for."

Alicia interrupted her friend, exclaiming:

"What a little fool you are, to be sure! We were only joking. Do you
think Enrique would really do any such crazy thing for me? What
nonsense!"

Proudly the student repeated:

"_?Quien sabe?_"

Then, after a little silence, he added:

"I don't know what makes you talk that way. You've never proved me. You
don't know what kind of a man I am!"

Two months earlier, the laughing, mocking words of these girls would
have disconcerted him. But now he felt himself transfigured; he felt
new, vigorous ardors in his blood. He no longer doubted. An
extraordinary dominating concept of his own person had taken possession
of him; and this concept of his youth and boldness, of his strength and
courage, had exalted him like strong drink. In a single moment the youth
had grown to be a man.

Alicia closely observed him. Her mouth grew serious, and under the
parting of her hair, that lay symmetrically on her forehead, her eyes
became pensive. She knew little of primitive man's hunting-ways, but was
expert in judging characters and stirring up passions. And though she
did indeed care little for books, men's consciences lay open to her
eyes; which kind of reading is far better. Her keen instincts, rarely
amiss, perceived something dominant, something desperate in the
student's voice and gestures. She judged it wise to end the
conversation.

"So long, Enrique. By the way, Manuel's been asking for you, a number of
times."

"Thanks. Give him my best regards."

"When are you coming to see me?"

Still shrouded in gloom, Darles answered:

"I don't know, Alicia. But you can be sure I'll come as soon as I have
the right to."

In this allusion to what he now called his duty, trembled indefinable
bitterness and pride.

When the student found himself alone, rage seized him--rage that, unable
to express itself in words, found vent