as
doing, she came out with the charges that had been tickling her tongue
for years! In short: two kinds of men, scamps and puddingheads! And a
glance of hers stamped the second label upon her brother, as he, in
fact, divined.

"So I'm the puddinghead, am I! Hah-hah!... Now see here, Roseta ... out
with it! All you know! And no mincing of words, either, or you'll be
sorry!"

They were half-way home now, near the roadside Cross. And they stopped a
moment in front of it. The Rector's ruddy face had turned pale as death,
and he kept biting nervously at his fingers, those blunt, bony,
calloused fingers of a fisherman.

"Well, Roseta," he added, when she stood silent still. "Out with it!"

But the girl did not come out with it. She had caught a dangerous gleam
in her brother's eye. She was afraid she had gone too far; and, a kindly
soul at heart, she repented her imprudent innuendos. She had caused the
pallor and the expression of fierce solemnity on that good-natured face!

"Oh, as for knowing, Pascualo, I don't know anything. It's only what
people say. But they say lots of things. And if you want them to stop
talking, I'd advise you to have Tonet around your house as little, as
little, as possible!"

Pascualo had stooped over the watering-trough near the Cross, and
covered the whole end of the pipe with his mouth, to let the stream run
full into his stomach, as though to drown a conflagration that was
burning in his insides. He straightened up and started on, the water
dripping down over his chin, till he wiped it away with the back of a
rough hand.

"I see. So that's all talk! Well, if they want to wait for me to be
nasty to Tonet, they can wait till hell freezes over. Filthy, stupid,
malicious chatter-boxes! That's what they are! So I must slam the door
in the face of that poor boy, eh! Well, I won't! Just when he's settling
down a bit, from the good influence Dolores has over him! And they're
all jealous of her, that's what. Just plain jealous!" And the gesture
with which he underlined the spiteful words seemed to include Roseta
among the envious. "Well, it's my affair, and so long as I don't worry,
they needn't. Let them talk their tongues off. That boy is what amounts
to a son to me. Why, it seems only yesterday when I was carrying him
around in my arms, like a nurse. And when he went to bed at night, I'd
roll up in a ball almost, so's he could have plenty of room. And now I'm
to kick him out of my house. No,