ndres resumed his place at the boy's side.

The cursed old fox! He had stuck the knife in the right place! Leonora's
past! Her favors distributed with mad lavishness over the four corners
of the globe! An army of men of every nation owning her for a moment
with the appeal of luxury or the enchantment of art! A palace today and
a hotel tomorrow! Her lips repeating in all the languages of Babel the
very words of love that had fired him as if he had been the first to
hear them! He was going to lose everything for that--that refuse, as don
Andres said--a public scandal, a ruined reputation; and a murdered
mother perhaps,--for that! Oh, that devil of a don Andres! How cunningly
he had slashed him, and then plunged his fingers into the bleeding gash
to make the wound deeper! The old man's plain common-sense had shattered
his dream. That man had been the rustic, cunning Sancho at the side of
the quixotic don Ramon; and he was playing the same role with Rafael!

Leonora's story came back to the boy in one flash--the frank confession
she had made during the days of their mere friendship, when she had told
him everything to prevent his continuing to desire her. However much she
might adore him, he would be nothing after all but a successor to a
Russian count, and a German musician; the latest, simply among those
countless ephemeral lovers, whom she had barely mentioned but who must
none the less have left some trace in her memory. The last item in a
long inventory! The most recent arrival, coming several years late, and
content to nibble at the soggy over-ripe fruit which they had known when
it was fresh and firm. Her kisses that so deeply disturbed him! What
were they but the intoxicating, unhealthful perfume of a whole career of
corruptness and licentiousness, the concentrated essence of a world
madly dashing at her seductive beauty, as a bird of night breaks its
head against the globe of a lighthouse? Give up everything for that! The
two of them traveling about the world, free, and proud of their
passion!... And out in that world he would encounter many of his
predecessors; and they would look at him with curious, ironic eyes,
knowing of her all that he would know, able to repeat all the panting
phrases she would speak to him in the exaggerations of her insatiable
passion! The strange thing about it was that all this had not occurred
to him sooner. Blind with happiness, he had never thought an instant of
his real place in that