"She did wisely," declared Leandra, draining a glass of wine.
"If she didn't know he was married...."
"What's the difference?" retorted Leandra with an air of unconcern.
"Plenty. How would you like a woman to carry off your husband?" Salome
asked her sister.
"Psch!"
"Yes, nowadays, we know," interrupted Senor Ignacio's mother. "Of two
women there isn't one that's respectable."
"A great ways any one'll go by being respectable," snarled Leandra.
"Poverty and hunger.... If a woman weren't to get married, then she
might make a change and even acquire money."
"I don't see how," asserted Salome.
"How? Even if she had to go into the business."
Senor Ignacio, disgusted, turned his head away from his wife, and his
elder son, Leandro, eyed his mother grimly, severely.
"Bah, that's all talk," argued Salome, who wished to thresh the matter
out impersonally. "You'd hardly like it just the same if folks were to
insult you wherever you went."
"Me? Much I care what folks say to me!" replied the cobbler's wife.
"Stuff and nonsense! If they call me a loose woman, and if I'm not,
why, you see: a floral wreath. And if I am,--it's all the same in the
end."
Senor Ignacio, offended, shifted the conversation to the crime on
Panuelas Street; a jealous organ-grinder had slain his sweetheart for
a harsh word and the hearers were excited over the case, each offering
his opinion.
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