ill. When they reached the
watering-place, her health improved greatly. She appeared more cheerful;
for hours at a time she would sit in the sand, getting tanned in the
sun, craving the warmth with the eagerness of an invalid, watching the
sea with her expressionless eyes, near her husband who painted,
surrounded by a semicircle of wretched people. She sang, smiled
sometimes to the master, as if she forgave him everything and wanted to
forget, but suddenly a shadow of sadness had fallen on her; her body
seemed paralyzed once more by weakness. She conceived an aversion to the
bright beach, and the life of the open air, with that repugnance for
light and noise which sometimes seizes invalids and makes them hide in
the seclusion of their beds. She sighed for her gloomy house in Madrid.
There she was better, she felt stronger, surrounded with memories; she
thought she was safer from the black danger that hovered about her.
Besides, she longed to see her daughter. Renovales must telegraph to his
son-in-law. They had toured Europe long enough; it was time for them to
come back; she must see Milita.

They returned to Madrid at the end of September, and a little later the
newly married couple joined them, delighted with their trip and still
more delighted to be at home again. Lopez de Sosa had been greatly vexed
by meeting people wealthier than he, who humiliated him with their
luxury. His wife wanted to live among friends who would admire her
prosperity. She was grieved at the lack of curiosity in those countries
where no one paid any attention to her.

With the presence of her daughter, Josephina seemed to recover her
spirits. The latter frequently came in the afternoon, dressed in her
showy gowns, which were the more striking at that season when most of
the society folk were away from Madrid, and took her mother to ride in
the motor in the suburbs of the capital, sweeping along the dusty roads.
Sometimes, too, Josephina summoning her courage, overcame her bodily
weakness and went to her daughter's house, a second-story apartment in
the Calle de Olozaga, admiring the modern comforts that surrounded her.

The master seemed to be bored. He had no portraits to paint; it was
impossible for him to do anything in Madrid while he was still saturated
with the radiant sun and the brilliant colors of the Mediterranean
shore. Besides, he missed the company of Cotoner, who had gone to a
historic little town in Castile, where with a co