instinct. I have not a prejudice, but I feel it disgusting to see a
woman who is somewhat more to me than other women, embraced by another
man. It would infuriate me if done in private; why should it not at
least disgust me in public? I care as little for the approving seal
of the conventions as I care whether other women--including my own
sisters--waltz or not."

And, alas! from that night Chonita never waltzed again. "It is not
that I care for his opinion," she assured me later; "only he made me
feel that I never wanted a man to touch me again."

Valencia used every art of flashing eyes and pouting lips and gay
sally--there was nothing subtle in her methods--to win Estenega to her
side; but the sofa on which he sat with Chonita might have been
the remotest star in the firmament. Then, prompted by pique and
determination to find ointment for her wounded vanity, she suddenly
opened her batteries upon Reinaldo. That beautiful young bridegroom
was bored to the verge of dissolution by his solemn and sleepy
Prudencia, who kept her wide eyes upon him with an expression of rapt
adoration, exactly as she regarded the Stations in the Mission when
performing the Via Crucis. Valencia, to his mind, was the handsomest
woman in the room, and he felt the flattery of her assault. Besides,
he was safely married. So he drifted to her side, danced with her,
flirted with her, devoted himself to her caprices, until every one was
noting, and I thought that Prudencia would bawl outright. Just in the
moment, however, when our nerves were humming, Don Guillermo thumped
on the door with his stick and ordered us all to go to bed.