n a box, still wearing the dress suits of the respectable
gatherings from which they came--the painter to the orchestra seats
with the long-haired young fellows who were his escort.

Renovales was gratified to see Lopez de Sosa greeting the most
fashionable, highest-priced _cocottes_ and smiling to comic-opera stars
with the familiarity of an old friend.

That boy had excellent connections, and he regarded this as an indirect
honor to his position as a father.

Cotoner frequently found himself dragged out of his orbit of serious,
substantial dinners and evening-parties, which he continued to frequent
in order not to lose his friendships which were his only source of
income.

"You are coming with me to-night," the master would say mysteriously.
"We will dine wherever you like, and afterwards I will show you
something."

And he took him to the theater where he sat restless and impatient until
the chorus came on the stage. Then he would nudge Cotoner, who was sunk
in his seat, with his eyes wide open, but asleep inside, in the sweet
pleasure of good digestion.

"Listen, look! the third from the right, the little girl--the one in the
yellow shawl!"

"I see her. What about her?" said his friend in a sour voice.

"Look at her closely. Who does she look like? Who does she remind you
of?"

Cotoner answered with a grunt of indifference. She probably looked like
her mother. What did he care about such resemblances. But his
astonishment aroused him from his quiet when he heard Renovales say he
thought her a rare likeness of his wife, and was indignant at him
because he did not recognize it.

"Why, Mariano, where are your eyes?" he exclaimed with no less sourness.
"What resemblance is there between that scraggly girl with her starved
face and your poor, dead wife. If you see a sorry-looking bean pole you
will give it a name, Josephina,--and there's nothing more to say."

Although Renovales was at first irritated at his friend's blindness, he
was finally convinced. He had probably deceived himself, as long as
Cotoner did not find the likeness. He must remember the dead woman
better than he himself; love did not disturb _his_ memory.

But a few days later he would once more besiege Cotoner with a
mysterious air. "I have something to show you." And leaving the company
of the merry lads who annoyed his old friend, he would take him to a
music hall and point out another scandalous woman who was kicking a
fling or doing a