speed, without
any witness except the discreet back of the chauffeur. The next day they
expected to start for a tour of Europe. They would go as far as Berlin;
perhaps farther.

Lopez de Sosa shook hands with his friends vigorously, like a proud
explorer, and went out to look over his car, before leaving. Milita
submitted to her friends' caresses, carrying away her mother's tears on
her veil.

"Good-by, good-by, my daughter!"

And the wedding was over.

Renovales and his wife were left alone. The absence of their daughter
seemed to increase the solitude, widening the distance between them.
They looked at each other hostilely, reserved and gloomy, without a
sound to break the silence and serve as a bridge to enable them to
exchange a few words. Their life was going to be like that of convicts,
who hate each other and walk side by side, bound with the same chain, in
tormenting union, forced to share the same necessities of life.

As a remedy for this isolation that filled them with misgivings they
both thought of having the newly married couple come to live with them.
The house was large, there was room for them all. But Milita objected,
gently but firmly, and her husband seconded her. He must live near his
coach house, his garage. Besides, where could he, without shocking his
father-in-law, put his collection of treasures, his museum of bull's
heads and bloody suits of famous toreadors, which was the envy of his
friends and an object of great curiosity for many foreigners.

When the painter and his wife were alone again, it seemed as though they
had aged many years in a month; they found their house more huge, more
deserted,--with the echoing silence of abandoned monuments. Renovales
wanted Cotoner to move to the house, but the Bohemian declined with a
sort of fear. He would eat with them; he would spend a great part of the
day at their house; they were all the family he had; but he wanted to
keep his freedom; he could not give up his numerous friends.

Well along in the summer, the master induced his wife to take her usual
vacation. They would go to a little known Andalusian watering-place, a
fishing village where the artist had painted many of his pictures. He
was tired of Madrid. The Countess of Alberca was at Biarritz with her
husband. Doctor Monteverde had gone there too, dragged along by her.

They made the trip, but it did not last more than a month. The master
hardly finished two canvases. Josephina felt