That's what the women were talking most about last night. You can see
why! She has always been the favorite of so many big guns!"

An idea seemed to flit across the wrinkled forehead of don Andrés,
tracing a wicked smile around his lips:

"You know what I think, Rafael? You're young and you're handsome, and
you've been abroad. Why don't you make a try for her, if only to prick
the bubble of her conceit and show her there are people here, too. They
say she's mighty good-looking, and, what the deuce! It wouldn't be so
hard. When she finds out who you are!..."

The old man said this with the idea of flattering Rafael, certain that
the prestige of his "prince" was such that no woman could resist him.
But Rafael had lived through the previous afternoon, and the words
seemed very bitter pills. Don Andrés at once grew serious, as if a
frightful vision had suddenly passed before his eyes; and he added in a
respectful tone:

"But no: that was only a jest. Don't pay any attention to what I say.
Your mother would be terribly provoked."

The thought of doña Bernarda, the personification of austere,
uncompromising virtue, chased the mirth from every face in the company.

"The strange thing about all this," said Rafael, who was anxious to turn
the conversation in a different direction, "is that now everybody
remembers the Doctor's daughter. But years and years went by without her
name being mentioned, in my hearing at least."