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But now Jovita's breath came broken by gasps, Dick reeled in his saddle, and brighter and brighter grew the sky. Ride, Richard; run, Jovita; linger, O day! For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears. Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or what? He was dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill, and did not recognize his surroundings.
Jovita had picked up the knot of gay ribbon and brushed the dust off it, and carried it home with her, grumbling fiercely. She was never averse to grumbling a little, and here, the saints knew, was cause. "For pride," she kept repeating; "for pride, and to show that others are beneath her! Mother of God! the king himself is not good enough for her!
"What has happened?" he asked. "She has thrown away the devisa, which I had saved," answered Jovita. "I laid it away, and she has taken it. What harm did it do her that it should lie out of her sight in peace?" "Did you do that?" José said to Pepita. "Was it meant for her?" said Pepita. "I told you he ought to have thrown it to her and not to me."
"Why did he not throw it to Jovita?" she said, and with a cruel, careless little movement she swept the devisa from her knee; it fell, and she set her foot upon it. "She has trodden upon it," said old Jovita. "She has done it for pride, and to show herself above others. She is ready for the devil. Some one should beat her." "It was the devisa," gasped José. "Sebastiano." Pepita left her seat.
But he could not go away. Some strange thing had happened to him, it seemed; it was as if a spell had fallen upon him. Better to be mocked than to go away. He stayed so late that Jovita fell asleep and nodded under the shadow of the grape-vines. And at last Pepita put down her guitar and rose. She stood upright in the moonlight, and extended her pretty arms and stretched them, laughing.
"Good-night," she said. "Jovita will amuse you. Already there have been too many hours in this day." She ran into the house with no other adieu than a wave of her hand, and the next minute they could hear her singing in her room, and knew she was going to bed. Sebastiano rose slowly. "Good-night," he said to José.
That night, as Pepita made ready for her bed, old Jovita, who had already retired, lay and looked at her. The girl stood in the flood of brilliant white moonlight which bathed part of the bare room; her round dimpled arms were lifted as she unwound the soft dusky coils of her hair, to which there yet clung a few stars of jasmine.
At first it seemed only as if her whole being went out into the fierce demand that he should come, and the obstinate proud belief that it must be as she wished that he could not resist and disobey her. Who had ever disobeyed her? Not José; not Jovita, for all her grumblings; not any of those others.
She heard José say so to Jovita, who grumbled loudly. She had forgotten her old distaste for these "fine ones." "And but for her humors he would have stayed," she said. "What more does she want than a fine well-built man like that a man who is well-to-do, and whom every other girl would dance for joy to get? But no; nothing but a prince for her. Well, we shall see.
But when the day of the bull-fight arrived it was not possible to conceal it. Ah! the wonders, the splendors of that day from the first hour! At its very dawning Pepita was up and singing. Jovita must take her rest, that she might be in her best humor to enjoy the festivities, and not spoil them by grumbling.
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