philosophically. 'The Alcalde is a very small dog, and he is at his
wit's end. Such a thing has not occurred in Ronda before, and the
Alcalde's world is Ronda. He does not know whether his office
permits him to inspect young ladies' love letters or not.'

'Love letters!' ejaculated Senora Barenna. She evidently had a keen
sense of the romantic, and hoped for something more tragic than a
mere flirtation begotten of idleness at sea.

'Yes,' said Concha, crossing his legs and looking at his companion
with a queer cynicism. 'Young people mostly pass that way.'

He had had a tragedy, this old man. One of those grim tragedies of
the cassock which English people rarely understand. And his tragedy
sat beside him on the cane chair, stout and eminently worldly, while
he had journeyed on the road of life with all his illusions, all his
half-fledged aspirations, untouched by the cold finger of reality.
He despised the woman now, the contempt lurked in his cynical smile,
but he clung with a half-mocking, open-eyed sarcasm to his memories.

'But,' he said reassuringly, 'Julia is a match for the Alcalde, you
may rest assured of that.'

Senora Barenna turned with a gesture of her plump hand indicative of
bewilderment.

'I do not understand her. She laughs at the soldiers--the
policemen, I mean. She laughs at me. She laughs at everything.'

'Yes, it is the hollow hearts that make most noise in the world,'