smiling eyes.

"Do you ask me? I know nothing of business. Besides, for me, whatever
you do is always right."

Miguel kissed her, and was convinced--that he had committed a great
piece of folly.

A few days later, when Mendoza and Miguel were alone in the library, the
prescript told his friend a secret that filled him with astonishment.

"I have something to tell you, Miguel...."

"What is it?"

"I am going to be married."

"How glad I am! Let us know who the unfortunate being is who has had
such bad taste!"

"I am to marry Lucia Poblacion, General Bembo's widow."[22]

We ought to remark, if we have not already done so, that the gigantic
Don Pablo had died seven months before in Porto Rico.

Miguel was dumfounded, and could not forbear a gesture of disgust. This
man knew what sort of a woman _la generala_ Bembo was; he was perfectly
aware of the relations which he himself had maintained with her. And he
had the heart to make her his wife! For several minutes he remained
without having a word to say, a thing that had not often happened to him
in his life before; then he murmured:--

"Very good, very good, I congratulate you."

"As soon as her year of mourning is over, which will be within five
months, we shall be married. She is a very agreeable woman.... Now that
I have become intimately acquainted with her, I am persuaded that all
the gossip about her is pure fiction; the poor lady is the victim of a
few fools who, out of disappointed jealousy, have given her a bad name."

Miguel's eyes flashed angrily; he imagined that these words were
directed against him, and he had a ferocious sarcasm on the tip of his
tongue; but he succeeded in suppressing it, feeling that the situation
in which his friend was putting himself was some excuse for him.

"And if you did not think so you would do very wrong to marry her.... I
have heard it said that Lucia has a snug little fortune; is that so?" he
added, allowing it to be clearly seen what were, in his opinion, the
motives of such a marriage.

Mendoza, though rather obtuse, perceived it, and replied angrily:--

"I don't know, I'm sure.... I met Lucia at Borell's, and from the very
first I was delighted with her. She is so refined and so full of noble
sentiments. The poor woman was obliged to marry a man old enough to be
her father; it would not have been strange if she had gone astray;
nevertheless, she succeeded in preserving her...."

"Don Pablo must have had