hen it was well presented in a
young and beautiful covering.

Impelled by his obstinacy, Renovales was determined to overcome the
resistance. He recalled, without the least remorse, the scene with his
wife in the bedroom, and her scornful words that foretold his failure
with the countess. Josephina's disdain was only another spur to urge him
to continue his course.

Concha kept him off and led him on at the same time. There was no doubt
that the master's love flattered her vanity. She laughed at his
passionate protestations, taking them in jest, always answering them in
the same tone: "Be dignified, master. That isn't becoming to you. You
are a great man, a genius. Let the boys be the ones to play the part of
the lovesick student." But when enraged at her subtle mockery, he took a
mental oath not to come back again, she seemed to guess it and she
suddenly assumed an affectionate air, attracting him with an interest
that made him foresee the near approach of his triumph.

If he was offended and kept silence, she was the one who talked of love,
of eternal passions between two beings of lofty minds, based on the
harmony of their thoughts; and she did not cease this dangerous
conversation until the master, with a sudden renewal of confidence,
came forward offering his love, only to be received with that kindly and
still ironical smile that seemed to look on him as a child whose
judgment was faulty.

And so the master lived, fluctuating between hope and despair, now
favored, now repelled, but always incapable of escaping from her
influence, as if a crime were haunting him. He sought opportunities to
see her alone with the ingenuity of a college boy, he invented pretexts
for going to her house at unusual hours, when there were no callers
present, and his courage failed him when he ran into the pretty doctor
and felt around himself that sensation of uneasiness which always seizes
an unwelcome guest.

The vague hope of meeting the countess at Moncloa, of walking with her a
whole afternoon, unmolested by that circle of insufferable people who
surrounded her with their drooling worship, kept him excited all night
and the next morning, as if a real rendezvous were awaiting him. Would
she go? Was not her promise a mere whim that she had immediately
forgotten? He sent a note to an ex-minister of State, whose portrait he
was painting, to ask him not to come to the studio that afternoon, and
after luncheon he got into a cab, tel