ed. Unsatisfied desires are like
undigested foods. At first they cause us a vague ill-ease, which soon
increases until indigestion sets in. Following this same line of
thought, is not disappointment or grief, in a way, the indigestion of a
caprice? Ingenuously, without realizing the indiscretion of promising
anything to women or children, Enrique exclaimed:

"If I were only rich--!"

The pause that followed was like that in a romance; one of those
silences during which women decide to do any and everything. Then all at
once, with the same bored gesture she had used when she had tossed the
book into the fire, Alicia put one of her little hands into the bony,
trembling hands of the student.

"Do you like my hands?" she queried.

"Enormously!"

"People say they're very big."

"Oh, no! Very small, indeed!"

With ravishment he examined the fine softness of her wrist, the
wandering lines traced by the blue veins beneath the whiteness of the
skin, the little dimples that adorned the back of her hand. That hand
was an artist's, a dancer's. Its fingers were showily covered with
rings. Alicia studied these rings. In their settings, the sapphires, the
blood-red rubies, the topazes and diamonds filled with light blent into
bouquets of tiny, never-fading flowers.

"Next time you go through Calle Mayor," directed the young woman, "take
a good look at the necklace I've told you about. There are two necklaces
in the window. One is of black pearls, the other of emeralds. I'm
talking about the emerald one. You'll find it a little to the left, on a
bust of white velvet."

The vision of the precious stones persisted in her memory with the
tenacity of an obsession. It filled her mind and dominated all her
thoughts with a dangerous kind of introspective tyranny.

Eight o'clock sounded. Enrique Darles got up.

"Going, already?" asked the girl.

"Yes, I'm going to supper."

She looked him over, from head to foot, and saw that he was slender,
with an almost childish beauty, as he stood there in his modest suit of
black. Then she thought about having nothing to do, that night, and how
horribly bored she was going to be.

"Why not stay here and have a bite with me?" she questioned.

"What for?" he demanded.

"What a question! Why, so we shan't have to separate, so soon."

"I--well, all right. Anything you like. But I'm afraid I'll bother you."

"What an idiot you are! Quite the contrary. Your conversation will amuse
me. Yo