t always found women easy to conquer, or because
his ostentatious figure, his fortune, and his arrogance made him bold
toward those who resisted him, he remained deeply disgusted because of
the scene at the party, where he had played a part so supremely
ridiculous in his own eyes. The absolute lack of coquetry which was
noticeable in Rivera's wife, was what mortified him most of all, since
he could not even invent the illusion that the indifference with which
she had received his gallantries was more or less fictitious.

To say that after this rebuff his ardor greatly increased, would be
doing little honor to the penetration of my readers: every one knows
that disdain is far from being the best palliative for love, and that,
in the majority of the mad passions that we see in the world, self-love
comes in with a respectable contingent.

Saavedra did not lose his wits, nor did he even make any false show of
appearing foolish, like Don Quixote in Sierra Morena; but as a man of
sagacity, accomplished in adventures of this sort, he determined not to
lose again his self-possession, and to "establish the blockade" of the
place according to the rules which his experience had laid down.

Quickly reading through Maximina's character, he divined that in her
case there would be no use for that amiability stuffed with arrogance,
that politeness imbued with disdain, which he had employed in winning
his cousin Julia's love. This serene, serious, and humble nature could
not be attacked on the side of vanity: he must aim at her affections. He
proposed, therefore, to win her little by little; not in the guise of a
rejected lover, which he well knew would be to lose forever her esteem,
but as a sincere, affectionate, and helpful friend. He tried with all
his power to dispel the suspicions which the conversation at the party
might have left in the young wife's mind. He quickly discovered that the
excitement under which she was at that time laboring had prevented her
from noticing his attempt to flirt with her; and he was enabled at his
leisure to carry out the plan of the campaign which he had designed.

He began gradually to make more and more frequent calls at their house,
skilfully overcoming the antipathy which Miguel had not the power to
dissemble. To accomplish this, he allowed him to notice a certain change
in his behavior, in harmony with those ideas of peace, order, and
propriety, which are characteristic of family life; he had