himself with short abrupt laughs. In the passage, sitting on a stool,
the mother sighed and moaned. The daughter, in rough threadbare
clothing, and her white haggard face half hidden by a coarse manta,
stood leaning against the lintel of the door. Gaspar Ruiz, with his
elbows propped on his knees and his head resting in his hands, talked
to the two women in an undertone.

The common misery of destitution would have made a bitter mockery of a
marked insistence on social differences. Gaspar Ruiz understood this
in his simplicity. From his captivity amongst the Royalists he could
give them news of people they knew. He described their appearance; and
when he related the story of the battle in which he was recaptured the
two women lamented the blow to their cause and the ruin of their
secret hopes.

He had no feeling either way. But he felt a great devotion for that
young girl. In his desire to appear worthy of her condescension, he
boasted a little of his bodily strength. He had nothing else to boast
of. Because of that quality his comrades treated him with as great a
deference, he explained, as though he had been a sergeant, both in
camp and in battle.

"I could always get as many as I wanted to follow me anywhere,
senorita. I ought to have been made an officer, because I can read and
write."

Behind him the silent old lady fetched a moaning sigh from time to
time; the distracted father muttered to himself, pacing the sala; and
Gaspar Ruiz would raise his eyes now and then to look at the daughter
of these people.