ng mad.
We ought to have what France had in '93. If I were alone, without all
these trifles of name and position, I would do to-day something that
would stir people. I'd throw a bomb, no, not a bomb; I'd get a revolver
and----"

"Fire!" shouted the painter, bursting into a laugh.

Concha drew back indignantly.

"Don't joke, master. I'll go away. I'll slap you. This is more serious
than you think. This afternoon is no time for jokes."

But her fickle nature contradicted the seriousness that she pretended to
give her words, for she smiled slightly, as if pleased at some memory.

"It wasn't wholly a failure," she said after a long pause. "My hands
aren't empty. The prime-minister didn't want to make me his enemy and so
he offered me a compensation, since the 'Lamb' affair was impossible. A
deputy's chair at the next election."

Renovales' eyes opened in astonishment. "For whom do you want that? To
whom is that going to be given?"

"To whom?" mimicked Concha with mock astonishment. "To whom! To whom do
you suppose, you simpleton! Not for you, you don't know anything about
that or anything else, except your brushes. For Monteverde, for the
doctor, who will do great things."

The artist's noisy laugh resounded in the silence of the square.

"Darwin a deputy of the majority! Darwin saying 'Aye' and 'No.'"

And after these exclamations his laugh of mock astonishment continued.

"Laugh, you old bear! Open that mouth wider; wag your apostolic beard!
How funny you are! And what's strange about that? But don't laugh any
longer; you make me nervous. I'll go away, if you keep on like this."

They remained silent for a long while. The countess was not long in
forgetting her troubles; her bird-like brain never retained any one
impression for long. She looked around her with disdainful eyes, eager
to mortify the painter. Was that what Renovales raved over so? Was there
nothing more?

They began to walk slowly, going down to the terraced gardens behind the
palace. They descended the moss-covered slopes that were streaked with
the black flint of the flights of stairs.

The silence was deathlike. The water murmured as it flowed from the
trunks of the trees, forming little streams that trickled down hill,
almost invisible in the grass. In some shady spots there still remained
piles of snow, like bundles of white wool. The shrill cries of the birds
sounded like the scratching of a diamond on glass. At the edge of the
stairwa