that desire for sympathy that all women of questionable
reputation experience, she spoke once more of her unpleasant situation.
Renovales knew the count, a good man in spite of his hobbies, who
thought of nothing but his honorary trinkets. She did everything for
him, watched out for his comfort, but he was nothing to her. She lacked
the most important thing--heart-love.

As she spoke she looked up, with a longing idealism that would have made
anyone but Renovales smile.

"In this situation," she said slowly, looking into space, "it isn't
strange that a woman seeks happiness where she can find it. But I am
very unhappy, Mariano; I don't know what love is. I have never loved."

Ah, she would have been happy, if she had married a man who was her
superior. To be the companion of a great artist, of a scholar, would
have meant happiness for her. The men who gathered around her in her
drawing-rooms were younger and stronger than the poor count, but
mentally they were even weaker than he. There was no such thing as
virtue in the world, she admitted that; she did not dare to lie to a
friend like the painter. She had had her diversions, her whims, just as
many other women who passed as impregnable models of virtue, but she
always came out of these misdoings with a feeling of disenchantment and
disgust. She knew that love was a reality for other women, but she had
never succeeded in finding it.

Renovales had stopped painting. The sunlight no longer came in through
the wide window. The panes took on a violet opaqueness. Twilight filled
the studio, and in the shadows there shone dimly like dying sparks, here
the corner of a picture frame, beyond the old gold of an embroidered
banner, in the corners the pummel of a sword, the pearl inlay of a
cabinet.

The painter sat down beside the countess, sinking into the perfumed
atmosphere which surrounded her with a sort of nimbus of keen
voluptuousness.

He, too, was unhappy. He said it sincerely, believing honestly in the
lady's melancholy despair. Something was lacking in his life; he was
alone in the world. And as he saw an expression of surprise on Concha's
face, he pounded his chest energetically.

Yes, alone. He knew what she was going to say. He had his wife, his
daughter. About Milita he did not want to talk; he worshiped her; she
was his joy. When he felt tired out with work, it gave him a sweet sense
of rest to put his arms around her neck. But he was still too young to
b