een through the coach windows as they passed.

Don Andres became impatient with the youth's stubbornness. He pointed to
all those happy, peaceful-looking families out for their afternoon
drive--wealth, comfort, public esteem, abundance, freedom from struggle
and toil! _Cristo_, boy! Was that so bad, after all? Well, that was just
the life he could have if he would be good and not turn his back on his
plain duty--rich, influential, respected, growing old with a circle of
nice children about him. What more could a decent person ask for in this
world?

All that bohemian nonsense about pure love, love free from law and
restraint, love that scoffs at society and its customs, sufficient unto
itself and despising public opinion, that was just bosh, the humbug of
poets, musicians and dancers--a set of outcasts like that woman who was
taking him away, cutting him off forever from all the ties that bound
him to family and country!

The old man seemed to take courage from Rafael's silence. He judged the
moment opportune for launching the final attack upon the boy's
infatuation.

"And then, what a woman! I have been young, like you, Rafael. It's true
I didn't know a stylish woman like this one, but, bah! they're all
alike. I have had my weaknesses; but I tell you I wouldn't have lifted a
finger for this actress of yours! Any one of the girls we have down home
is worth two of her. Clothes, yes, talk, yes, powder and rouge inches
deep!... I'm not saying she's bad to look at--not that; what I say
is... well, it doesn't take much to turn your head--you're satisfied
with the leavings of half the men in Europe...."

And he came to Leonora's past, the lurid, much exaggerated legend of her
journey through life--lovers by the dozens; statues and paintings of her
in the nude; the eyes of all Europe centered on her beauty; the public
property of a continent! "That was virtue to go crazy about, come now!
Quite worth leaving house and home for, no doubt of that!"

The old man winced under the flash of anger that blazed in Rafael's
eyes. They had just crossed another bridge, and were entering the city
again. Don Andres, wretched coward that he was, sidled away to be within
reach of the customs' office if the fist he could already see cleaving
the air should come his way.

Rafael, in fact, stopped in his tracks, glaring. But in a second or two
he went on his way again, dejected, with bowed head, ignoring the
presence of the old man. Don A