st have been his daughter. She had always
been very considerate and thoughtful of the poor Bohemian.

"Not that," interrupted the master. "I want to know if you thought she
was beautiful, if she really was beautiful."

"Why, man, yes," said Cotoner resolutely. "She was beautiful or, rather,
attractive. At the end she seemed a bit changed. Her illness! But all in
all, an angel."

And the master, calmed by these words, stood looking at his own works.

"Yes, she was very beautiful," he said slowly, without turning his eyes
from the canvases. "Now I recognize it; now I see her better. It's
strange, Pepe. It seems as if I have found Josephina to-day after a long
journey. I had forgotten her; I was no longer certain what her face was
like."

There was another long pause, and once more the master began to ply his
friend with anxious questions.

"Did she love me? Do you think she really loved me? Was it love that
made her sometimes act so--strangely?"

This time Cotoner did not hesitate as he had at the former questions.

"Love you? Wildly, Mariano. As no man has been loved in this world. All
that there was between you was jealousy--too much affection. I know it
better than anyone else; old friends, like me, who go in and out of the
house just like old dogs, are treated with intimacy and hear things the
husband does not know. Believe me, Mariano, no one will ever love you as
she did. Her sulky words were only passing clouds. I am sure you no
longer remember them. What did not pass was the other, the love she bore
you. I am positive; you know that she told me everything, that I was the
only person she could tolerate toward the end."

Renovales seemed to thank his friend for these words with a glance of
joy.

They went out to walk at the end of the afternoon, going toward the
center of Madrid. Renovales talked of their youth, of their days in
Rome. He laughed as he reminded Cotoner of his famous stock of Popes, he
recalled the funny shows in the studios, the noisy entertainments, and
then, after he was married, the evenings of friendly intercourse in that
pretty little dining-room on the Via Margutta; the arrival of the
Bohemian and the other artists of his circle to drink a cup of tea with
the young couple; the loud discussions over painting, which made the
neighbors protest, while she, his Josephina, still surprised at finding
herself the mistress of a household, without her mother, and surrounded
by men, smiled tim