ghtest ties and show
off shocking waistcoats; his rival crushed him and, what was worse, the
master's wife, who formerly used to have a sort of motherly concern for
him and called him by his first name, for she had known him as a boy,
now received him coldly, as if she wished to discourage his suit for
Milita.

The girl fluctuated between her two admirers with a mocking smile. One
seemed to interest her as much as the other. She drove the painter, the
companion of her childhood, to despair, at times abusing him with her
jests, at others attracting him with her effusive intimacy, as in the
days when they played together; and at the same time she praised Lopez
de Sosa's stylishness, laughed with him, and Soldevilla even suspected
that they wrote letters to each other as if they were engaged.

Renovales rejoiced at the cleverness with which his daughter kept the
two young men uncertain and eager about her. She was a terror, a boy in
skirts, more manly than either of her worshipers.

"I know her, Pepe," he said to Cotoner. "We must let her do what she
wants to. The day she decides in favor of one or the other we'll have to
marry her at once. She isn't one of the girls to wait. If we don't marry
her soon and to her taste, she's likely to elope with her fiance."

The father excused Milita's impatience. Poor girl! Think what she saw in
her home! Her mother always ill, terrifying her with her tears, her
cries and her nervous attacks; her father working in his studio, and her
only companion the unsympathetic "Miss." He owed his thanks to Lopez de
Sosa for taking them outdoors on these dizzy rides from which Josephina
returned greatly quieted.

Renovales preferred his pupil. He was almost his son, he had fought many
a hard battle to give him fellowships and prizes. He was a trifle
displeased at some of his slight infidelities, for as soon as he had won
some renown, he bragged about his independence, praising everything that
the master thought condemnable behind his back. But even so, the idea of
his marrying his daughter pleased him; a painter as a son-in-law; his
grandchildren painters, the blood of Renovales perpetuated in a dynasty
of artists who would fill history with their glory.

"But, oh, Pepe! I'm afraid the girl will choose the other. After all,
she's a woman. And women appreciate only what they see, gallantry and
youth."

And the master's words betrayed a certain bitterness, as though he were
thinking of someth