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In particular he saw a pair of burning black eyes, a pair of eager, sinewy hands strewing drawings over the pink and gold brocades of his front parlour suite, and a shock of dark hair that swished about over a high square forehead as the work of hurried exposition raged along against a pitiless ticking of the marble-and-gilt clock and Preciosa's hasty adjustment of the green velvet toque.
This done, they ate a hearty dinner, made an equitable division of the gift money, repeated their praises of Andrew, and exalted Preciosa's beauty to the skies.
Preciosa's eyes blazed as well as her cheeks, but not, as some thought, from exhilaration or from gratified vanity; rather from protestant indignation and a full determination not to be moved.
Then bending over him she said, almost without moving her lips, "A pretty sort of gitano you will make! Why, Andrew, how will you be able to bear the torture with gauze, when you are overcome by a bit of paper?" Then making half-a-dozen signs of the cross over his heart, she left him, after which Andrew breathed a little, and told his friends that Preciosa's words had done him good.
All Murcia flocked to see the prisoners, for the news of the soldier's death had been received there; but so great was Preciosa's beauty that no one looked upon her that day without blessing her.
This made the old gipsy woman very uneasy, lest the proposed scrutiny should lead to the discovery of Preciosa's trinkets and Andrew's clothes, which she preserved with great care. But the good wench Carducha quickly put an end to her fears on that head, for before they had turned over two packages, she said to the men, "Ask which of these bundles belongs to that gipsy who is such a great dancer.
Dear child! how good of you to call all these things 'ideas'! No wonder such novelties puzzled your poor dear grandfather!" She clutched Preciosa's chubby little hand with her long white fingers, as if to squeeze from it an answering shriek. But Preciosa contained herself.
The submerged "resemblance" had risen once more to the surface, as Little O'Grady had foretold, and the canvas had been borne home in triumph to Preciosa's fond, admiring family. "Who did it?" asked her grandfather, boundlessly pleased. "That young man," replied Preciosa. "What young man?" "The one who came here that night and threw those big sheets of paper all over the furniture."
As for the old gipsy, he assured her that he forgave the injury she had done him in stealing his treasure, since she had more than made atonement by restoring it. The only thing that grieved him was that, knowing Preciosa's quality, she should have betrothed her to a gipsy, and worse than that, to a thief and murderer.
With these words she quitted Andrew, leaving him impatient for daylight, that he might receive the confession of the wounded man, and distracted in mind by a thousand various surmises. He could not believe but that this page had come thither attracted by Preciosa's beauty; for the thief believes that all men are such as himself.
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