without undue vanity. He had much to offer an
ambitious girl conscious of her superiority to the
men of this province of Spain, and chafing at the
prospect of a lifetime in a bountiful desert. His
only hesitation lay in his own doubt if she were
worth the loss of his freedom, and all that word
involved to a man of his position and adventurous
spirit.

He shrugged his shoulders at this argument; he
had walked off some of his ill-humor, and reverted
willingly to a theme that alone had given him satis-
faction during the past few days. At the same time
he made a motion as if flinging aside an old burden.

"It is time for such nonsense to end," he thought
contemptuously. "And in truth these three years
should have wrought such changes in me I doubt I
should have patience for an hour of the old trifling.
My greatest need from this time on, I fancy, is
work. I could never be idle a month again. And
when a man is in love with work--and power--
and has passed forty--does he want a constant com-
panion? That is the point. At my time of life
power exercises the most irresistible and lasting of
all fascinations. A man that wins it has little left
for a woman."

He had reached the summit of the rocky outpost;
the highest of the hills where the peninsula turned