She was drying her
eyes, I fancied, when I opened mine.
"Awake at last!" cried Don Juan pleasantly. "Come and drink _mate_.
Wife just been crying, you see."
She made a sign for him to hold his peace.
"Why not speak of it, Candelaria?" he said. "Where is the harm? You
see, my wife thinks you have been in the wars--a Santa Coloma man
running away to save his throat."
"How does she make that out?" I asked in some confusion and very much
surprised.
"How! Don't you know women? You said nothing about where you had
been--prudence. That was one thing. Looked confused when we talked of
the revolution--not a word to say about it. More evidence. Your
_poncho_, lying there, shows two big cuts in it. 'Torn by thorns,'
said I. 'Sword-cuts,' said she. We were arguing about it when you
woke."
"She guessed rightly," I said, "and I am ashamed of myself for not
telling you before. But why should your wife cry?"
"Woman like--woman like," he answered, waving his hand. "Always ready
to cry over the beaten one--that is the only politics they know."
"Did I not say that woman is an angel from heaven," I returned; then,
taking her hand, I kissed it. "This is the first time I have kissed
a married woman's hand, but the husband of such a wife will know better
than to be jealous."
"Jealous--ha, ha!" he laughed. "It would have made me prouder if you
had kissed her cheek.
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