But she did not come. The orchestra struck up the opening bars, and the youth, without turning his eyes from the door, encircled the waist of the embroideress and dashed rapidly into the centre of the room. Other young people, no less rapid, dashed from the opposite side, and then ensued one shock, then another, and then another. Such collisions formed the chief attraction of these balls, and the young girls, instead of being angry at nearly losing their footing and having their hair tumbled, laughed with infinite pleasure. Pablo and Nieves, who could not take four turns without colliding with another couple, were perfectly charmed. Nevertheless, the young man felt his legs tremble whenever he passed the door, and he always left it as quickly as possible. When the orchestra had finished he took his partner to a corner of the room and then sat down a minute, and Pablito felt a spark of feeling glow in the ashes of his love for that girl so cheerful, so good-tempered, and so affectionate.
"Yes, I wanted to dance with you, Nieves," he said as he wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
"You are right. But see, I have not forgotten."
"On Wednesday I saw you--I saw you in the Nieva road--you were on a white horse."
"Throw me!" exclaimed Pablito, slightly frowning. "It was a bit fresh, child; a mare does not throw me so easily."
"But it reared up so! It almost stood upright. Goodness, how frightened I was!"
"I was teaching it to step high," returned the youth, with a smile of superiority. "As she has not been worked before she resisted a bit. Sometimes her mouth seems too tender, but, taking her all round, Linda is a fine creature. Look here, when I bought her, or, rather, when I changed Negress--and she cost me over and above 1,500 reales--for her last October, she had a temper, indeed; she stuck in the middle of the road, she shied at the carts and carriages--in short, she was an impossible creature, and I said to myself: 'What is to be done with this mare?'"
Pablito, in whose heart the girl had touched a sensitive chord, talked long and brilliantly on his equestrian deeds. Nieves listened with rapturous delight, thinking that behind the minute description of Linda's peccadillos she was going to find her lost love.