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Many a time when he saw her come Manuel vowed to himself not to speak a word to her, not to look at her or say anything; then she would hunt him out and tease him by beckoning to him and touching his foot. Justa's temper was disconcertingly uneven.
"Psch ... yes," and El Conejo looked at Manuel with the reserved mien of a person concealing a mystery. "You've known her since she was a kid, haven't you?" "Yes. But I've known plenty of other girls, too." "Has she a sweetheart?" "She must have. Every woman has a sweetheart unless she's mighty ugly." "And who is Justa's fellow?"
"Starveling! ... Loafer!" shouted Manuel. "You're one yourself," cried one of Justa's friends tauntingly after him. "Rabble! Guttersnipe!" Manuel, filled with shame and thirsting for vengeance, still half dazed by the blow, thrust his cap down over his face and stamped along the road weeping with rage. Soon after he left he heard somebody running toward him from behind.
Summer went by; Justa began to make preparations for her wedding, and in the meantime Manuel thought of leaving Senor Custodio's house and getting out of Madrid altogether. Whither? He didn't know; the farther away, the better, he thought. In November one of Justa's shopmates got married, in La Bombilla, Senor Custodio and his wife found it impossible to attend, so that Manuel accompanied Justa.
Justa's words were always freighted with a double meaning and were, at times, burning allusions. Her mischievous manner, her flaunting, unbridled coquetry, scattered about her an atmosphere of lust. Manuel felt a painful eagerness to possess her, mingled with a great sadness and even hatred, when he saw that Justa was making sport of him.
He thought that he could live for two or three weeks on her incendiary glances alone. The next day, when Manuel met El Conejo he listened to the nonsense that the hunchback spoke, with his eternal harping on the Bishop of Madrid-Alcala, and then tried to shift the conversation toward the topic of Senor Custodio and his family. "Justa's a pretty girl, isn't she?"
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