oke and
generations of spillings, firmly straddled on thick trestles. Over the
fire hung a copper pot, sooty, with a glitter of grease on it where the
soup had boiled over. When one leaned to put a bundle of sticks on the
fire one could see up the chimney an oblong patch of blackness spangled
with stars. On the edge of the hearth was the great hunched figure of
the _padron_, half asleep, a silk handkerchief round his head, watching
the coffee-pot.

"It was an elegant life, full of voyages," went on the actor. "South
America, Naples, Sicily, and all over Spain. There were formal dinners,
receptions, ceremonial dress.... Ladies of high society came to
congratulate us.... I played all the child roles.... When I was
fourteen a duchess fell in love with me. And now, look at me, ragged,
dying of hunger--not even able to fill a theatre in this hog of a
village. In Spain they have lost all love of the art. All they want is
foreign importations, Viennese musical comedies, smutty farces from
Paris...."

"With cognac or rum?" the _padron_ roared out suddenly in his deep
voice, swinging the coffee pot up out of the fire.

"Cognac," said the actor. "What rotten coffee!" He gave little petulant
sniffs as he poured sugar into his glass.

The wail of a baby rose up suddenly out of the dark end of the kitchen.

The actor took two handfuls of his hair and yanked at them.

"_Ay_ my nerves!" he shrieked. The baby wailed louder in spasm after
spasm of yelling. The actor jumped to his feet, "!Dolores, Dolores,
_ven aca_!"

After he had called several times a girl came into the room padding
softly on bare feet and stood before him tottering sleepily in the
firelight. Her heavy lids hung over her eyes. A strand of black hair
curled round her full throat and spread raggedly over her breasts. She
had pulled a blanket over her shoulders but through a rent in her
coarse nightgown the fire threw a patch of red glow curved like a rose
petal about one brown thigh.

"_!Que desvergonza'a!_... How shameless!" muttered the _padron_.

The actor was scolding her in a shrill endless whine. The girl stood
still without answering, her teeth clenched to keep them from
chattering. Then she turned without a word and brought the baby from
the packing box in which he lay at the end of the room, and drawing the
blanket about both her and the child crouched on her heels very close
to the flame with her bare feet in the ashes. When the crying had
ceased s