tendants came out in search of him,--sprightly
young fellows with a feminine carriage and a faint suggestion of perfume
about them, who looked on the artist with respect, believing he was an
important personage. They called to Signor Cotoner, asking him to help
them find something Monsignor had sent the day before, and the Bohemian,
in order to avoid further requests, finally went into the dressing-room,
to assist in the sacred toilette of his illustrious friend.

In the drawing-rooms the company suddenly eddied, the conversation
ceased, and a throng of people, after crowding in front of one of the
doors, opened to leave a passage.

The bride, leaning on the arm of a distinguished gentleman, who was the
best man, entered, clad in white, ivory white her dress, snow white her
veil, pearl white her flowers. The only bright color she showed was the
healthy pink of her cheeks and the red of her lips. She smiled to her
friends, not bashfully nor timidly, but with an air of satisfaction at
the festivity and the fact that she was its principal object. After her
came the groom, giving his arm to his new mother, the painter's wife,
smaller than ever in her party-gown that was too large for her, dazed by
this noisy event that broke the painful calm of her existence.

And the father? Renovales was missing in the formal entrance; he was
very busy attending to the guests; a gracious smile, half hidden behind
a fan, detained him at one end of the drawing-room. He had felt some one
touch his shoulder and, turning around, he saw the solemn Count of
Alberca with his wife on his arm. The count had congratulated him on the
appearance of the studios; all very artistic. The countess had
congratulated him too, in a jesting tone, on the importance of this
event in his life. The moment of retiring, of saying good-by to youth
had come.

"They are shelving you, dear master. Pretty soon they will be calling
you grandfather."

She laughed with pleasure at the flush of pain these pitying words
caused him. But before Mariano could answer the countess, he felt
himself dragged away by Cotoner. What was he doing there? The bride and
groom were at the altar; Monsignor was beginning the service; the
father's chair was still vacant. And Renovales passed a tiresome
half-hour following the ceremonies of the prelate with an absent-minded
glance. Far away in the last of the studios, the stringed instruments
struck a loud chord and a melody of earthly myst