rtained, and
when they were entertained impressed with the sense that they had the
honour to be guests of a grandee of Spain.

Now that of a grandee has never been a cheap profession; indeed, as many
a pauper peer knows to-day, rank without resources is a terrific burden.
Montalvo had the rank, for he was a well-born man, whose sole heritage
was an ancient tower built by some warlike ancestor in a position
admirably suited to the purpose of the said ancestor, namely, the
pillage of travellers through a neighbouring mountain pass. When,
however, travellers ceased to use that pass, or for other reasons
robbery became no longer productive, the revenues of the Montalvo family
declined till at the present date they were practically nil. Thus it
came about that the status of the last representative of this ancient
stock was that of a soldier of fortune of the common type, endowed,
unfortunately for himself, with grand ideas, a gambler's fatal fire,
expensive tastes, and more than the usual pride of race.

Although, perhaps, he had never defined them very clearly, even to
himself, Juan de Montalvo had two aims in life: first to indulge his
every freak and fancy to the full, and next--but this was secondary
and somewhat nebulous--to re-establish the fortunes of his family. In
themselves they were quite legitimate aims, and in those times, when
fishers of troubled waters generally caught something, and when men of
ability and character might force their way to splendid positions, there
was no reason why they should not have led him to success. Yet so
far, at any rate, in spite of many opportunities, he had not succeeded
although he was now a man of more than thirty. The causes of his
failures were various, but at the bottom of them lay his lack of
stability and genuineness.

A man who is always playing a part amuses every one but convinces
nobody. Montalvo convinced nobody. When he discoursed on the mysteries
of religion with priests, even priests who in those days for the
most part were stupid, felt that they assisted in a mere intellectual
exercise. When his theme was war his audience guessed that his object
was probably love. When love was his song an inconvenient instinct was
apt to assure the lady immediately concerned that it was love of self
and not of her. They were all more or less mistaken, but, as usual, the
women went nearest to the mark. Montalvo's real aim was self, but he
spelt it, Money. Money in large sums wa