Justice was informing itself
on the whole matter.
Such conversations continually diversified, extended, repeated
on all hands, quickly aroused a prejudice against the doctor's
family. Besides which, the Senora Alveda resented bitterly
the visits of her son Luis to Isabel. None of the customs of
a Mexican betrothal had taken place, and Rachela did not spare
her imagination in describing the scandalous American
familiarity that had been permitted. That, this familiarity
had taken place under the eyes of the doctor and the Senora
only intensified the insult. She might have forgiven
clandestine meetings; but that the formalities due to the
Church and herself should have been neglected was indeed
unpardonable.
It soon became evident to the Senora that she had lost the
good-will of her old friends, and the respect that had always
been given to her social position. It was difficult for her
to believe this, and she only accepted the humiliating fact
after a variety of those small insults which women reserve for
their own sex.
She was fond of visiting; she valued the good opinion of her
caste, and in the very chill of the gravest calamities she
worried her strength away over little grievances lying
outside the walls of her home and the real affections of her
life. And perhaps with perfect truth she asserted that SHE
had done nothing to deserve this social ostracism.
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