ambition, I shall marry this Russian or I shall never
marry at all."

"Mother of God! Mother of God!" Don Jose's
face was purple. The veins swelled in his neck. He
was the more wroth because he recognized his own
daughter and his own handiwork, because he saw
that he confronted a Toledo blade, not a woman's
brittle will. Concha regarded him calmly.

"If you refuse your consent you will lose me in
another way. I may not be able to marry as I wish,
but I will have no worldly alternative. I shall join
the Third Order of the Franciscans, and enter a
convent as soon as one is built in California. To
that you cannot withhold your consent, or they no
longer would call you El santo."

Don Jose leaped from his chair. "Go to your
room!" he thundered. "And do not dare to leave it
without my permission--"

But Concha sprang forward and flung herself
upon his neck. She rubbed her warm elastic cheek
against his own in the manner he loved, and softened
her voice. "Papacito mio, papacito mio," she
pleaded. "Thou wilt not refuse thy Concha the only
thing she has ever begged of thee. And I beg! I
beg! Papa mio! I love him! I love him!" And
she broke into wild weeping and kissed him franti-