chance to scream scandal.

"Rafael, don't be crazy," his mother would say, threatening him
indulgently with her withered forefinger. "Let Remedios work; if you
carry on so I won't let you come into the parlor."

And at night, alone in the dining-room with don Andres, when the hour
of confidences came, dona Bernarda would forget the affairs of "the
House" and of "the Party," to say with satisfaction:

"It's going better."

"Is Rafael taking to her?"

"More and more every day. We're getting there, we're getting there! That
boy is the living image of his father when it comes to matters like
this. Believe me, you can't let one of that tribe out of your sight a
minute. If I didn't keep my eye peeled, that young devil would be doing
something that would discredit the House forever."

And the good woman was sure that Doctor Moreno's daughter--that
abominable creature whose good looks had been her nightmare for some
months past--no longer existed for Rafael.

She knew, from her spies, that on one market morning the two had met on
the street in town. Rafael had looked the other way, as if trying to
avoid her; the "_comica_" had turned pale and walked straight ahead
pretending not to see him. What did that mean?... A break for good of
course! The impudent hussy was livid with rage, you see, perhaps because
she could not trap her Rafael again; for he, weary of such
uncleanliness, had abandoned her forever. Ah, the lost soul, the
indecent gad-about! Excuse me! Was a woman to educate a son in the
soundest and most virtuous principles, make a somebody of him, and then
have an adventuress come along, a thousand times worse than a common
street-woman, and carry him off, as nice as you please, in her filthy
hands? What had the daughter of that scamp of a doctor thought?... Let
her fume! "You're sore just because you see he's dumped you for good!"

In the joy of her triumph dona Bernarda was thinking anxiously of her
son's marriage to Remedios, and, coming down one peg on the ladder of
her dignity toward don Matias, she began to treat the exporter as a
member of the family, commenting contentedly upon the growing affection
that united their two children.

"Well, if they're fond of each other," said the rustic magnate, "the
wedding can take place tomorrow so far as I'm concerned. Remedios means
a good deal to me; hard to find a girl like her for running a house; but
that needn't interfere with the marriage. I'm mighty well sati