itics, for the benefit of My Lords
up in Madrid! And just when a Brull was about to reap the reward of so
many sacrifices at last, and become a deputy--the means perhaps of
clearing off the property, which was lousy with attachments and
mortgages!...

Rafael had been no match for that energetic mother, the soul of "the
Party." Meekly he had promised never to return to the Blue House, never
to call again on that "loose woman"--dona Bernarda actually hissed as
she said the word.

However, the upshot of it all had been that Rafael simply discovered how
weak he was. Despite his promise, he returned to the Blue House often,
but by round-about ways and over long detours, skulking from cover to
cover, as he had done in childhood days when stealing oranges from the
orchards. There he was, a man whose name was on the lips of the whole
county, and who at any moment might be invested with authority from the
people, thus realizing the life-long dream of his father! But the sight
of a woman in the fields, a child, a beggar, would make him blanch with
terror! And that was not the worst of it! Whenever he entered the Blue
House now he had to pretend he came openly, without any fear whatever.
And so things had gone on down to the very eve of his departure for
Madrid.

As Rafael reached this point in his reminiscences, he asked himself what
hope had led him to disobey his mother and brook her truly formidable
wrath.

In that blue house he had found only frank, disinterested friendship,--a
somewhat ironic comradeship, the condescending tolerance of a person
compelled by solitude to choose as her comrade the least repulsive among
a host of inferiors. Alas! How clearly he remembered and could again
foresee the sceptical, cold smile with which his words were always
received, though he was sure he had crammed them with burning passion!
What a laugh she had given,--as insolent and as cutting as a lash,--the
day he had dared to declare his love!

"Now the soft-pedal on slush, eh, Rafaelito?... If you want us to go on
being friends, all right, but it's on condition you treat me as a man.
Comrades, eh, and nothing more."

And with a look at him through those green, luminous, devilish eyes of
hers, she had taken her seat at the piano and begun one of her divine
songs, as if she thought the magic of her art might raise a barrier
between them.

On another occasion, she was irritable rather; Rafael's appealing eyes,
his words of amorous ad