“Why are you so seducing?” he exclaimed weakly.
Was it the deception of the light, or did a slight flush diffuse itself over his face? But why did she say nothing to the man who was drawing his face nearer to hers and speaking so softly? What thought was restraining her? What sentiment was conquering her? The man was still bending, as if to snatch her from her silence, to snatch a word from her, which would not issue from the tightly closed lips.
“You are not yet thirty, Maria?” he asked, with a sigh.
“And I am old now,” he murmured melancholily, pressing her still hand, “I am so old for you. Youth is a beautiful thing.”
“Youth is a magnificent thing,” she replied, raising her voice with flashing eyes.
The incantation was broken. Violently Emilio let go of her hand. Getting up and withdrawing apart he strode through the room two or three times gloomily, almost blindly striking against the furniture. Sadly she looked at him, seeing him a prey to a sudden access of fury, and before this mystery her woman’s heart quailed anxiously.
“Emilio!” she called two or three times without his hearing.
“Maria,” he replied at last, in a kind of growl, without stopping.
“Nothing,” he replied, between his teeth.
Very gradually his violent perambulations amongst the furniture grew calmer. He stopped near a table at a little distance away and sat there. Leaning his elbows on it, he hid his head in his hands, immersed in deep and terrible thoughts. Thus the time passed, while Maria herself seemed wrapped in thought. At last she seemed to make a decision. She rose, crossed the room, and bending over her husband, without touching him, called him again: “Emilio.”
“Emilio, my friend, reply,” she said softly and insinuatingly.
“What do you want?” was the gloomy reply.
“Why do you lie? You are very troubled; tell me what is the matter?”
“I have never laughed at any one,” she replied patiently.
“Who knows?” he said, looking at her in mad anger, and with the open intention of offending her.
She stopped, and grew pale. But her moral energy was too great.
“He who laughs at the sufferings of another is a knave and a fool; you would not consider me perverse or stupid, Emilio?”
“I am not suffering,” he replied gloomily, rising.