ell unconscious on the divan.

"At the sight of her in such a state I felt my blood take fire, and I
followed the young man out. I overtook him near the stairs, and,
grasping him by the wrist, I said to him:

"'A word with you. The first thing that a man has to be, before he can
be a poet, is a gentleman,--and that is something you are not. Your
play was hissed because it lacks the same thing that you lack,--and
that is a heart. Here, sir, is my card.'"

"And did you not send him your seconds, Don Jeronimo?" inquired the
medical student.

"Silence, silence!" exclaimed another of the group, "here is
Clotilde."

And, in fact, the charming actress at that moment appeared in the
doorway, and her large and sad black eyes, all the more beautiful
beneath her white Louis XV coiffure, smiled tenderly upon her
faithful friends.

CAPTAIN VENENO'S PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE

Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

"Great heavens! What a woman!" cried the captain, and stamped with
fury. "Not without reason have I been trembling and in fear of her
from the first time I saw her! It must have been a warning of fate
that I stopped playing _ecarte_ with her. It was also a bad omen that
I passed so many sleepless nights. Was there ever mortal in a worse
perplexity than I am? How can I leave her alone without a protector,
loving her, as I do, more than my own life? And, on the other hand,
how can I marry her, after all my declaimings against marriage?"

Then turning to Augustias--"What would they say of me in the club?
What would people say of me, if they met me in the street with a woman
on my arm, or if they found me at home, just about to feed a child in
swaddling clothes? I--to have children? To worry about them? To live
in eternal fear that they might fall sick or die? Augustias, believe
me, as true as there is a God above us, I am absolutely unfit for it!
I should behave in such a way that after a short while you would call
upon heaven either to be divorced or to become a widow. Listen to my
advice: do not marry me, even if I ask you."

"What a strange creature you are," said the young woman, without
allowing herself to be at all discomposed, and sitting very erect in
her chair. "All that you are only telling to yourself! From what do
you conclude that I wish to be married to you; that I would accept
your offer, and that I should not prefer living by myself, even if I
had to work day and night, as so many girls do who are orphans?"