a
Central American port. Ferragut had difficulty in reconciling the
little creature crawling over the sand with this same slender,
olive-colored girl wearing her mass of hair like a helmet of ebony,
with two little spirals escaping over the ears. Her eyes appeared to
have the changing tints of the sea, sometimes black and others blue, or
green and deep where the light of the sun was reflected like a point of
gold.

He was attracted by her simplicity and by the timid grace of her words
and smile. She was an irresistible novelty for this world-rover who had
only known coppery maidens with bestial roars of laughter, yellowish
Asiatics with feline gestures, or Europeans from the great ports who,
at the first words, beg for drink, and sing upon the knees of the one
who is treating, wearing his cap as a testimony of love.

Cinta, that was her name, appeared to have known him all his life. He
had been the object of her conversations with Dona Cristina when they
spent monotonous hours together weaving lace, as was the village
custom. Passing her room, Ulysses noticed there some of his own
portraits at the time when he was a simple apprentice aboard a
transatlantic liner. Cinta had doubtless taken them from her aunt's
room, for she had been admiring this adventurous cousin long before
knowing him. One evening the sailor told the two women how he had been
rescued on the coast of Portugal. The mother listened with averted
glance, and with trembling hands moving the bobbins of her lace.
Suddenly there was an outcry. It was Cinta who could not listen any
longer, and Ulysses felt flattered by her tears, her convulsive
laments, her eyes widened with an expression of terror.

Ferragut's mother had been greatly concerned regarding the future of
this poor niece. Her only salvation was matrimony, and the good senora
had focused her glances upon a certain relative a little over forty who
needed this young girl to enliven his life of mature bachelorhood. He
was the wise one of the family. Dona Cristina used to admire him
because he was not able to read without the aid of glasses, and because
he interlarded his conversation with Latin, just like the clergy. He
was teaching Latin and rhetoric in the Institute of Manresa and spoke
of being transferred some day to Barcelona,--glorious end of an
illustrious career. Every week he escaped to the capital in order to
make long visits to the notary's widow.

"He doesn't come on my account," said