José leered knowingly. "You think only of your daughter," he said. "What
about Saint Harry? He has mad blood in him, too. It is only a few years
that he has been a saint; before that the Devil held full sway over him.
And," he added pensively, after a moment's cogitation, "there are many
lessons one learns from the Devil."

"You should know," returned Gallito, with his twisting, sardonic smile.

"Ah, the Devil is not all bad," said José defensively. "One can learn
from him the lesson of perseverance, and perseverance is a virtue."

Gallito waved his hand with a polite gesture. "You know more of him and
his lessons than I, José. I am always ready to grant that." He took
another sip of cognac, blew a succession of smoke wreaths toward the
ceiling, and again resumed his midnight philosophizings. "What puzzles
me, José, is what is going to become of us in Heaven. We shall never be
content. Content is a lesson that no one has ever learned. Look at Saint
Harry. He has Heaven right here. His time to himself, enough to live on
without working, no women to bother him, your cooking; and it may be on
that that you will win an entrance to Heaven; it will certainly be on
nothing else. But, if, as you say, he is interested in my daughter, he
is throwing away all chance of keeping Paradise."

"Do we not all do that?" said José dismally. "It is because a man cannot
conceive of a Heaven without a woman in it. He thinks in spite of all
experience to the contrary that she is what makes it Heaven."

"Yes, experience counts for nothing," Gallito sighed for himself and his
brothers.