peraments,
undecided and ready to fit into any situation, look to me like
half-season clothes that are always disagreeable. In summer they're too
warm and in winter too cold."

Darles ventured to say with some timidity:

"What's the reason you're put out to-day?"

"I don't know."

"What?"

"It's true. Unless it might be----"

She stopped, inwardly searching her thoughts, then went on:

"It's because you're very young that my words astonish you. Sometime
you'll be older, and then you'll understand the world better. You'll
know the cause of all these little vexations that embitter life can't be
found in concrete facts. We have to recognize such vexations as the
total, the corollary of our whole history, of everything we've lived
through. For example, we're sad now because we were sad before, or maybe
gay. In to-day's tears you'll find the bitter-aloes of the tears of long
ago; and there's the weariness of dead laughter there, too. Understand?
Don't wonder, therefore, that you can't comprehend exactly why I'm in
such a bad temper, to-day."

She grew quiet, sinking down into a brown study that drew a vertical
line upon her pretty brow. Then she asked:

"Do you often go through Calle Mayor?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Do you remember the jeweler's shop on the right, on the even-numbered
side, near the Puerta del Sol?"

The student nodded.

"Well, if you like jewels," continued Alicia, "take a look at that
emerald necklace in the middle of the window. I just happened to see it,
to-day, and it made such an impression on me that I haven't been able to
get it out of my mind. It's magnificent, not only in size and in the
wonderful luster of the stone, but also on account of its splendid
clasp."

"Worth a lot, eh?"

"Fifteen thousand pesetas."

Darles said nothing to this. But his brows lifted with admiration. Such
figures filled his provincial simplicity with panic and confusion. By
comparison with the miserable shallowness of his purse, they seemed
enormous. Little Goldie continued:

"I told Don Manuel about it, but he's a clever fox. He's a sly one!
There's no way in this world to rake _him_ into spending any extra
money. That's partly what we've just now been quarreling about. Believe
me, it's men's own fault if we aren't more faithful to them."

Ignorant as he was of feminine psychology, Enrique understood that
Alicia's black humor was on account of that emerald necklace she so
deeply admired and so greatly want