well! But even if anyone were to upset me again, it would not be you,
Rafaelito dear."

And yet he had persisted, insensible to the irony and the scorn of this
terrible _amigo_ in skirts, and indifferent as well to the conflicts
that his blind passion might provoke at home if his mother knew.

He tried to free himself from his infatuation, but unsuccessfully. With
that in view he fixed his attention on the woman's past; it was said
that despite her beauty, her aristrocratic manners, the brilliancy of
mind with which she had dazzled him--a poor country boy--she was only an
adventuress who had made her way over half the globe from one pair of
arms to another. Well, in that case, it would be a great exploit to win
a woman whom princes and celebrated men had loved! But since that was
impossible, why go on, why continue endangering his career and having
trouble with his mother all the time?

To forget her, he stressed, before his own mind, words and attitudes of
hers that might be judged defects; and he would taste the joy of duty
well done when, after such gymnastics of the will, he could think of her
without great emotion.

At the beginning of his life in Madrid he imagined he had recovered. New
surroundings; continuous and petty satisfactions to vanity; the
kow-towing of doorkeepers in Congress; the flattery of visitors from
here, there and everywhere who came with requests for passes to admit
them to the galleries; the sense of being treated as a comrade by
celebrities, whose names his father had always mentioned with bated
breath; the "honorable" always written before his name; all Alcira
speaking to him with affectionate familiarity; this rubbing elbows, on