wore evening-dress.
His short, thick, epicurean nose supported gold-bowed spectacles.

"Well, my boy," he exclaimed. "You, here?"

Enrique blushed violently, without exactly understanding why, as he
answered:

"Yes, I came to--to see----"

Hardly knowing what he was about, he took off his hat, with that respect
we learn even as children, when confronted by our parents' friends. Now
he stood there, holding the hat with both hands across his breast. Don
Manuel, you know, was a deputy in the National Assembly. The great man
made Enrique put his hat on, again.

"What are you doing in Madrid?" asked he.

"Studying."

"Law?"

"No, sir. Medicine."

"That's a first-rate profession. What year are you in?"

"Freshman," answered Darles, and smiled in a shamefaced sort of way. He
knew his answers were short and clumsy, and the feeling of shabbiness
oppressed him more than ever. Don Manuel glanced about him, with a kind
of arrogant ease. Two or three times he murmured: "I'm waiting for
somebody." Then he began to talk to the student again, asking him about
his father and the political boss of the home town. Darles kept on
answering every question just the same way:

"No change, down there. Everything's all right."

And again the conversation was broken off by Don Manuel's expectant
glancing about for the friend he was to meet.

The deputy asked, after a minute or two:

"You're living in a boarding-house, aren't you?"

"No, sir."

"Where, then?"

"In Calle Ballesta. I've rented a little inside room, on the fourth
floor. It costs me thirteen pesetas a month, and I eat at a little
tavern on the same street."

"I see you know how to rub along. You can save money, if you're willing
to fight with landladies. After you've got thoroughly used to Madrid,
nothing can make you ever go back home. Madrid is wonderful! With money,
a clever man can have all kinds of amusement here."

Don Manuel added, using that confidential air with which fools and
parvenus try to impress people they think beneath them:

"See here! You're not a boy, any more. And I--hang it all!--you can't
call me old, yet. I don't see my friend showing up, anywhere, so we can
have a little talk. I've got--I've got something bothering me. You
understand?"

Enrique nodded.

"You know her? Alicia Pardo?"

"No, sir."

"She's very popular, in the gay set. A beauty! At the Casino we call her
'Little Goldie'."

His whole expression suddenly changed.