"Leave me alone.
I am all right and I am ashamed."
He stood there, getting his face under control.
Maria put her hand in Robert Jordan's.
Pilar stood with her hands on her hips looking at the boy mockingly now.
"When I kiss thee," she said to him, "it will not be as any sister.
This trick of kissing as a sister."
"It is not necessary to joke," the boy said.
"I told you I am all right, I am sorry that I spoke."
"Well then let us go and see the old man," Pilar said.
"I tire myself with such emotion."
The boy looked at her.
From his eyes you could see he was suddenly very hurt.
"Not thy emotion," Pilar said to him.
"Mine.
What a tender thing thou art for a bullfighter."
"I was a failure," Joaquin said.
"You don't have to keep insisting on it."
"But you are growing the pigtail another time."
"Yes, and why not?
Fighting stock serves best for that purpose economically.
It gives employment to many and the State will control it.
And perhaps now I would not be afraid."
"Perhaps not," Pilar said.
"Perhaps not."
"Why do you speak in such a brutal manner, Pilar?" Maria said to her.
"I love thee very much but thou art acting very barbarous."
"It is possible that I am barbarous," Pilar said.
"Listen, _Ingles_.
Do you know what you are going to say to El Sordo?"
"Yes."
"Because he is a man of few words unlike me and thee and this sentimental menagerie."
"Why do you talk thus?" Maria asked again, angrily.
"I don't know," said Pilar as she strode along.
"Why do you think?"
"I do not know."
"At times many things tire me," Pilar said angrily.
"You understand?
And one of them is to have forty-eight years.
You hear me?
Forty-eight years and an ugly face.
And another is to see panic in the face of a failed bullfighter of Communist tendencies when I say, as a joke, I might kiss him."
"It's not true, Pilar," the boy said.
"You did not see that."
"_Que va_, it's not true.
And I obscenity in the milk of all of you.
Ah, there he is. _Hola_, Santiago! _Que tal?_"
The man to whom Pilar spoke was short and heavy, brownfaced, with broad cheekbones; gray haired, with wide-set yellowbrown eyes, a thin-bridged, hooked nose like an Indian's, a long Upper lip and a wide, thin mouth.
He was clean shaven and he walked toward them from the mouth of the cave, moving with the bow-legged walk that went with his cattle herdsman's breeches and boots.
The day was warm but he had on a sheep's-wool-lined short leather jacket buttoned up to the neck.