, disfigured by the centuries, in which hardly a single stroke
was left as the author had made it? What good did it do the human race,
which changes its dwelling place every dozen centuries and has seen the
proud works of man, built of marble or granite, fall in ruins,--if a
certain Renovales produced a few beautiful toys of cloth and colors,
which a cigar stub could destroy, or a puff of wind, a drop of water
leaking through the wall, might ruin in a few years?

But this pessimistic attitude disappeared when some one called him
"Illustrious Master," or when he saw his name in a paper, and a pupil or
admirer manifested an interest in his work.

At present he was resting. He had not yet recovered from the shock. Poor
Josephina! But he was going to work a great deal; he felt a new strength
for works greater than any that he had thus far produced. And after
these exclamations, he would be seized with a mad desire for work and
would enumerate the pictures he had in mind, dwelling upon their
originality. They were bold problems in color, new technical methods
that had occurred to him. But these plans never passed the limits of
speech, they never reached the brush. The springs of his will, once
vibrant and vigorous, seemed broken or rusted. He did not suffer, he did
not desire. Death had taken away his fever for work, his artistic
restlessness, leaving him in the limbo of comfort and tranquillity.

In the afternoon, when he succeeded in throwing off his comfortable
torpor, he went to see his daughter, if she was in Madrid, for she very
frequently went with her husband on his automobile trips. Then he ended
the afternoon at the Albercas', where he often stayed till midnight.

He dined there almost every day. The count, accustomed to his society,
seemed as eager to see him as his wife. He spoke enthusiastically of the
portrait which Renovales was painting of him to go with Concha's. He
would make more progress when he secured some insignia of foreign orders
that were still lacking in his catalogue of honors. And the artist felt
a twinge of remorse as he listened to the good gentleman's simplicity,
while his wife, with mad recklessness, caressed him with her eyes,
leaned toward him as if she were on the point of falling into his arms.

Then, as soon as the husband went away, she would throw her arms about
him, hungry for him, defying the curiosity of the servants. Love that
was threatened with dangers seemed sweeter to her. A