If a woman goes wrong,
it's the man that's to blame. If she's not married they are all after
her to get what they want ... and maybe I don't know that! If I was the
fool some men take me for, God knows the fix I'd be in to-day! And if
you are married, well, it's worse, almost--for the scamps try to get you
into trouble, and the puddingheads haven't sense enough to keep their
wives where they belong. Look at Tonet, for instance! Wouldn't Rosario
be serving him right if she went on the street, even, to get square with
him for all he does! And then, well, no! Stop at Tonet! We don't need to
give other examples! But the whole Cabanal knows about husbands that are
themselves to blame if their wives aren't all they ought to be!"

And the girl leered at the Rector so unguardedly, in saying this, that
Pascualo, in spite of his corpulent obtuseness, caught the glimmer of an
allusion and studied her face enquiringly. But his immense faith, at
bottom, in people and in things stood him in good stead against any
dangerous inference. And he protested, mildly, at her exaggeration.
Bosh! People in the Cabanal made him sick! They were always talking
about somebody, to pass the time. If you listened to what people said,
there wasn't a decent woman in town, nor a husband that wasn't the joke
of the beach. But that's only a way they had of amusing themselves. The
Cabanal had no manners, as don Santiago, the curate, said so well! "Now,
take me, for instance. I've got the best, sweetest wife in the world,
and everybody knows it! Well, does that keep those fools from blabbing
about her? And who's the man? Tonet, may it please the court! Tonet, of
all men! The people in the Cabanal are donkeys, idiots, rotters, that's
all! Tonet, God save us! Why, Tonet ... he worships Dolores, like a
mother.... But no, my house has simply got to be a brothel, for those
chatter-boxes.... Tonet! God!" And the Rector laughed one of those
hearty laughs of pitying superiority at the stupidity of people, the
kind of laugh the Spanish peasant gives when he hears some benighted
ignoramus questioning the authenticity of the village Virgin's miracles.

Roseta stopped short in her tracks, sizing up the Rector with those
dreamy sea-green eyes of hers. What did that laugh mean? Was Pascudo
serious? Yes, without a doubt. As serious as a preacher! That
puddinghead was proof-proof! And the certainty angered her.
Instinctively, without reckoning the consequences of what she w