atter; death is nothing to a Spaniard; the family, the name, a
thousand years of name is everything. The general is, you know, a 'man of
iron.' 'Yes, one member of your family shall be respited, but on one
condition.' To the agonised family conditions are as nothing. But they
don't know the man of iron is determined to make a terrible example, and
they cry, 'Any conditions.' 'He who is respited must serve as executioner
to the others.' Great is the doom; you understand; but after all the name
must be saved. Then in the family council the father goes to his youngest
son and says, 'I have been a good father to you, my son; I have always been
a kind father, have I not? answer me; I have never refused you anything.
Now you will not fail us, you will prove yourself worthy of the great name
you bear. Remember your great ancestor who defeated the Moors, remember.'"
(Villiers strives to get in a little local colour, but his knowledge of
Spanish names and history is limited, and he in a certain sense fails.)
"Then the mother comes to her son and says, 'My son, I have been a good
mother, I have always loved you; say you will not desert us in this hour of
our great need.' Then the little sister comes, and the whole family kneels
down and appeals to the horror-stricken boy....

"'He will not prove himself unworthy of our name,' cries the father. 'Now,
my son, courage, take the axe firmly, do what I ask you, courage, strike
straight.' The father's head falls into the sawdust, the blood all over the
white beard; then comes the elder brother, and then another brother; and
then, oh, the little sister was almost more than he could bear, and the
mother had to whisper, 'Remember your promise to your father, to your dead
father.' The mother laid her head on the block, but he could not strike.
'Be not the first coward of our name, strike; remember your promise to us
all,' and her head was struck off."

"And the son," the girl asks, "what became of him?"

"He never was seen, save at night, walking, a solitary man, beneath the
walls of his castle in Granada."

"And whom did he marry?"

"He never married."

Then after a long silence some one said,--

"Whose story is that?"

"Balzac's."

At that moment the glass door of the _cafe_ grated upon the sanded
floor, and Manet entered. Although by birth and by art essentially
Parisian, there was something in his appearance and manner of speaking that
often suggested an Englishman. Perhaps it