e her from me! If Rosario does not abhor that ruffian as I
wish her to do, she shall abhor him. For a mother's authority must have
some weight. We will tear this passion, or rather this caprice, from
her heart, as a tender plant is torn out of the ground before it has
had time to cast roots. No, this cannot be, Remedios. Come what may,
it shall not be! Not even the most infamous means he could employ will
avail that madman. Rather than see her my nephew's wife, I would accept
any evil that might happen to her, even death!"

"Better dead, better buried and food for worms," affirmed Remedios,
clasping her hands as if she were saying a prayer--"than see her in the
power of--ah, senora, do not be offended if I say something to you,
and that is, that it would be a great weakness to yield merely because
Rosarito has had a few secret interviews with that audacious man. The
affair of the night before last, as my uncle related it to me, seems to
me a vile trick on Don Jose to obtain his object by means of a scandal.
A great many men do that. Ah, Divine Saviour, I don't know how there are
women who can look any man in the face unless it be a priest."

"Be silent, be silent!" said Dona Perfecta, with vehemence. "Don't
mention the occurrence of the night before last to me. What a horrible
affair! Maria Remedios, I understand now how anger can imperil the
salvation of a soul. I am burning with rage--unhappy that I am, to see
such things and not to be a man! But to speak the truth in regard to
the occurrence of the night before last--I still have my doubts. Librada
vows and declares that Pinzon was the man who came into the house. My
daughter denies every thing; my daughter has never told me a lie!
I persist in my suspicions. I think that Pinzon is a hypocritical
go-between, but nothing more."

"We come back to the same thing--that the author of all the trouble is
the blessed mathematician. Ah! my heart did not deceive me when I first
saw him. Well, then senora! resign yourself to see something still more
terrible, unless you make up your mind to call Caballuco and say to him,
'Caballuco, I hope that--'"

"The same thing again; what a simpleton you are!"

"Oh yes! I know I am a great simpleton; but how can I help it if I am
not any wiser? I say what comes into my head, without any art."

"What you think of--that silly and vulgar idea of the beating and the
fright--is what would occur to any one. You have not an ounce of brains,