mic pride he received
the honors due to genius, living in the palace of the prelate and
ruining several pictures in the Cathedral by an infamous restoration.

His loneliness made Renovales remember the Alberca woman with all the
greater longing. She, on her part, with a constant succession of letters
reminded the painter of her every day. She had written to him while he
was at the little village on the coast and now she wrote to him in
Madrid, asking him what he was doing, taking an interest in the most
insignificant details of his daily life and telling him about her own
with an exuberance that filled pages and pages, till every envelope
contained a veritable history.

The painter followed her life minute by minute, as if he were with her.
She talked to him about Darwin, concealing Monteverde under this name;
she complained of his coldness, of his indifference, of the air of
commiseration with which he submitted to her love. "Oh, master, I am
very unhappy!" At other times her letter was triumphant, optimistic; she
seemed radiant, and the painter read her satisfaction between the lines;
he divined her intoxication after those daring meetings in her own
house, defying the count's blindness. And she told him everything, with
shameless, maddening familiarity, as if he were a woman, as if he could
not be moved in the least by her confidences.

In her last letter, Concha seemed mad with joy. The count was at San
Sebastian, to take leave of the king and queen,--an important diplomatic
mission. Although he was not "in line," they had chosen him as a
representative of the most distinguished Spanish nobility to take the
Fleece to a petty prince of a little German state. The poor gentleman,
since he could not win the golden distinction, had to be contented with
taking it to other men with great pomp. Renovales saw the countess's
hand in all this. Her letters were radiant with joy. She was going to be
left alone with Darwin, for the noble gentleman would be absent for a
long time. Married life with the doctor, free from risk and disturbance!

Renovales read these letters merely out of curiosity; they no longer
awakened in him an intense or lasting interest. He had grown accustomed
to his situation as a confidant; his desire was cooled by the frankness
of that woman who put herself in his power, telling him all her secrets.
Her body was the only thing he did not know; her inner life he possessed
as did none of her lovers and he