on.

"Thank you, sir; I am highly honored by such a favor, but I am not
going. You confounded fool. Do you suppose that girl knows who Renovales
is or has ever even heard of his name?"

The master expressed his astonishment with childlike simplicity.

"Man alive. I believe that the name Renovales--that what the papers have
said--that my portraits---- Be frank, say that you don't want to."

And he was silent, offended at his companion's refusal and his doubt
that his fame had reached this corner. Friends sometimes abuse us with
unexpected scorn and great injustice.

At the end of the show the master felt that he must do something, not go
away without sending the "Bella Fregolina" some evidence of his
presence. He bought an elaborate basket of flowers from a flower vendor
who was starting home, discouraged at the poor business. She should
deliver it immediately to Senorita--"Fregolina."

"Yes, to Pepita," said the woman with a knowing air, as if she were one
of her friends.

"And tell her it is from Senor Renovales--from Renovales, the painter."

The woman nodded, repeating the name. "Very well, Renovales," just as
she would have said any other name. And without the least emotion she
took the five dollars which the painter gave her.

"Five dollars! You idiot," muttered his friend, losing all respect for
him.

Good Cotoner refused to go with him after that. In vain Renovales talked
to him enthusiastically every night about that girl, deeply impressed by
her different impersonations. Now she appeared in a pale pink dress,
almost like some clothes put away in the closets of his house; now she
entered in a hat trimmed with flowers and cherries, much larger, but
still something like a certain straw hat which he could find amid the
confusion of Josephina's old finery. Oh, how it reminded him of her!
Every night he was struck with some renewed memory.

Lacking Cotoner's assistance, he went to see the "Bella" with some of
the young fellows of his disrespectful court. These boys spoke of the
"star" with respectful scorn, as the fox in the fable gazed at the
distant grapes, consoling himself at the thought of their sourness. They
praised her beauty, seen from a distance; according to them she was
"lily-like"; she had the holy beauty of sin. She was out of their reach;
she wore costly jewels and according to all reports had influential
friends, all those young gentlemen in dress clothes who occupied the
boxes during the