, but not my bath; it's the one luxury I have kept,
and I sent to Valencia for the plumbers, the marble, and the wood and...
well ... it's a gem. I'll show it to you, by and by. If some fine day I
should suddenly take it into my head to fly away, that bath will remain
here, for my poor aunt to preach about and show how her madcap niece
squandered a mint of money on sinful folly, as she calls it."

And she laughed, with a glance at the innocent dona Pepa, who, there on
the other bench, was for the hundredth time explaining to the Italian
maid the prodigious miracles wrought by the patron of Alcira, and trying
to persuade the "foreigner" to transfer her faith to that saint, and
waste no more time on the second or third raters of Italy.

"Don't imagine," the actress continued, "that I forgot you during all
this time. I am a real friend, you see, and take an interest! I learned
through Cupido, who ferrets out everything, just what you were doing in
Madrid. I, too, figured among your admirers. That proves what friendship
can do! ... I don't know why, but when senor Brull is concerned, I
swallow the biggest whoppers, though I know they're lies. When you made
your speech in the Chambers on that matter of flood protection, I sent
to Alcira for the paper and read the story through I don't know how many
times, believing blindly everything said in praise of you. I once met
Gladstone at a concert given by the Queen at Windsor Castle; I have
known men who got to be presidents of their countries on sheer
eloquence--not to mention the politicians of Spain. The majority of
them I've had, one time or another, as hangers-on in my
dressing-room--once I had sung at the 'Real.' Well, despite all that, I
took the exaggerations your party friends printed about you quite
seriously for some days, putting you on a level with all the solemn
top-notchers I have known. And why, do you suppose? Perhaps from my
isolation and tranquillity here, which do make you lose perspective; or
perhaps it was the influence of environment! It is impossible to live in
this region without being a subject of the Brulls!... Can I be falling
in love with you unawares?"

And once more she laughed the gleeful, candid, mocking laugh of other
days. At first she had received him seriously, simply, under the
influence still of solitude, country life and the longing for rest and
quiet. But once in actual contact with him again, the sight, again, of
that lovesick expression