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“I crave your pardon. Among my pupils I have this boy who has just left us. He is a prodigy, a youngster of extraordinary talents. When I saw how bright he was, how determined, I conceived an interest in him; I inquired about his family, and was told that he had neither father nor mother, and had been taken into a certain lady’s home.”

“Well, what has all this got to do with me?”

“Patience, Don Sergio. I went to see this kind lady, who is a baroness, and I said to her, ‘The boy whom you have taken into your home is worthy of the utmost encouragement. Something should be done for his education.’

“‘His mother has no means and his father, who is very wealthy, does nothing for him,’ was the baroness’s reply.

“‘Tell me who his father is, and I’ll go to see him,’ I said.

“‘It’s no use,’ she answered, ‘for you’ll get nothing out of him. His name is Don Sergio Redondo.’”

As he pronounced these words, Peñalar got up, and with his head thrown back contemplated Don Sergio, even as the exterminating angel glances upon a poor reprobate. Don Sergio turned frightfully pale, pulled out his handkerchief, rubbed his lips, hawked. It was easily to be seen that he was perturbed.