tly in one of the master's cheeks,
she ran out, followed by Miss, who was already puffing in anticipation
at the thought of the tiresome walk.

Renovales remained motionless as if he hesitated to shake off the
atmosphere of affection in which his daughter enveloped him. Milita was
his, wholly his. She loved her mother, but her affection was cold in
comparison with the ardent passion she felt for him--that vague,
instinctive preference girls feel for their fathers and which is, as it
were, a forecast of the worship the man they love will later inspire in
them.

For a moment he thought of looking for Josephina to console her, but
after a brief reflection, he gave up the idea. It probably was nothing;
his daughter was not disturbed; a sudden fit such as she usually had. If
he went upstairs he would run the risk of an unpleasant scene that would
spoil the afternoon, rob him of his desire to work and banish the
youthful light-heartedness that filled him after his luncheon with
Tekli.

He turned his steps towards the last studio, the only one that deserved
the name, for it was there he worked, and he saw Cotoner sitting in a
huge armchair, the seat of which sagged under his corpulent frame, with
his elbows resting on the oaken arms, his waistcoat unbuttoned to
relieve his well-filled paunch, his head sunk between his shoulders, his
face red and sweating, his eyes half closed with the sweet joy of
digestion in that comfortable atmosphere heated by a huge stove.

Cotoner was getting old; his mustache was white and his head was bald,
but his face was as rosy and shining as a child's. He breathed the
placidness of a respectable old bachelor whose only love is for good
living and who appreciates the digestive sleepiness of the
boaconstrictor as the greatest of happiness.

He was tired of living in Rome. Commissions were scarce. The Popes lived
longer than the Biblical patriarchs. The chromo portraits of the Pontiff
had simply forced him out of business. Besides, he was old and the young
painters who came to Rome did not know him; they were poor fellows who
looked on him as a clown, and never laid aside their seriousness except
to make sport of him. His time had passed. The echoes of Mariano's
triumphs at home had come to his ears, had determined him to move to
Madrid. Life was the same everywhere. He had friends in Madrid, too. And
here he had continued the life he had led in Rome, without any effort,
feeling a kind of longi