rs
before had walked with their heads high, following the star of hope as
if they were hypnotized. Renovales, in his pride in his strength,
incapable of hypocritical modesty, declared that he was the only one who
had succeeded. Poor Tekli was a professor; his copy of Velasquez
amounted to nothing more than the work of a patient cart horse in art.

"Do you think so?" asked Cotoner doubtfully. "Is his work so poor?"

His selfishness kept him from saying a word against anyone; he had no
faith in criticism, he believed blindly in praise; thereby preserving
his reputation as a good fellow, which gave him the entree everywhere
and made his life easy. The figure of the Hungarian was fixed in his
memory and made him think of a series of luncheons before he left
Madrid.

"Good afternoon, master."

It was Soldevilla who came out from behind a screen with his hands
clasped behind his back under the tail of his short sack coat, his head
in the air, tortured by the excessive height of his stiff, shining
collar, throwing out his chest so as to show off better his velvet
waistcoat. His thinness and his small stature were made up for by the
length of his blond mustache that curled around his pink little nose as
if it were trying to reach the straight, scraggly bangs on his forehead.
This Soldevilla was Renovales' favorite pupil--"his weakness" Cotoner
called him. The master had fought a great battle to win him the
fellowship at Rome; afterward he had given him the prize at several
exhibitions.

He looked on him almost as a son, attracted perhaps by the contrast
between his own rough strength and the weakness of that artistic dandy,
always proper, always amiable, who consulted this master about
everything, even if afterwards he did not pay much attention to his
advice. When he criticized his fellow painters, he did it with a
venomous suavity, with a feminine finesse. Renovales laughed at his
appearance and his habits and Cotoner joined in. He was like china,
always shining; you could not find the least speck of dust on him; you
were sure he slept in a cupboard. These present-day painters! The two
old artists recalled the disorder of their youth, their Bohemian
carelessness, with long beards and huge hats, all their odd
extravagances to distinguish them from the rest of men, forming a world
by themselves. They felt out of humor with these painters of the last
batch--proper, prudent, incapable of doing anything absurd, copying the