he had drawn up and wanted to
have introduced in Congress--a protectionist measure for Spanish
oranges. "Why, it will be the making of the city, boy! Every mother's
son of us swimming in money!" as he guaranteed with his hand upon his
heart.

But Rafael's gaze was lost in the distant reaches of the Prado, to catch
one more fleeting glimpse of a golden head of hair--proof of Leonora's
presence still! He found it hard to be courteous, even, to this man who,
according to authentic rumor, was destined to be his father-in-law. Of
all the drawling trickling words only a few reached his ears, beating on
his brain like monotonous hammer blows. "Glasgow ... Liverpool ... new
markets ... lower railroad rates ... The English agents are a set of
thieves ..."

"Very well, let them go hang," Rafael answered mentally. And giving a
mechanical "yes, yes!" to propositions he was not even hearing, he gazed
away more intently than ever, fearing lest Leonora should already have
gone. He felt relieved, however, when a gap opened in the crowd and he
could see the actress seated in a chair that had been offered her by a
huckstress. She was holding a child upon her knees, and talking with a
tiny, wretched, sickly creature who looked to Rafael like the
orchard-woman they had met at the hermitage.

"Well, what do you think of my plan?" don Matias asked.

"Excellent, magnificent, and well worthy of a man like you, who knows
the question from top to bottom. We'll discuss the matter thoroughly
when I return to the Cortes."

And to avoid a second exposition, he patted the wealthy boor on the
back, and wondered why in the world Fortune should have picked such a
disgusting man to smile on.

The whole city had known don Matias when he went around in peasant's
clogs and worked a tiny orchard he had secured on lease. His son, a
virtual half-wit, who took advantage of every opportunity to rifle the
old man's pockets and spend the money in Valencia with bull-fighters,
gamblers and horse-dealers, went barefoot in those days, scampering
about the roads with the children of the gipsies encamped in _El
Alborchi_. His daughter--the now well-behaved, the now modest, Remedios,
who was passing day after day at complicated needlework under the
tutelage of dona Bernarda--had grown up like a wild rabbit of the
fields, repeating with shocking fidelity all the oaths and vile language
she heard from the carters her father drank with.

"But you have to be an ox