ains completely to
ignore his wife.

She, on the other hand, kept caroming phrases at him indirectly wounding
and pinching him, while talking with Miguel.

The chivalrous _caballero_, when the charge hurt him, would give a
wrathful look at his sweet enemy; and as she managed very cleverly to
avoid it, he would shake his head in sign of wrath, and make an
expressive face at his nephew, and then give his attention to what was
in front of him.

When breakfast was over, Miguel took leave of his aunt very courteously,
and after going back to his Uncle Manolo's room to help the old man put
on his coat, they went into the street together.

As soon as they were fairly out of doors, Senor Rivera's ill-humor and
the melancholy that had grown upon him during the last third of the meal
vanished as by magic; he pulled out his case, gave Miguel a cigar, and
lighted another, beginning to puff with satisfaction, while they were
passing along San Jeronimo Avenue.

Miguel, however, could not keep the revolver out of his thoughts, and he
was possessed to unravel the mystery concealed in it. When they had
turned the corner of the Calle de la Puebla, he stopped a moment, and
asked him boldly:--

"See here, uncle, though you may call me indiscreet, I am going to ask
you a question, because I can no longer stand the torment of
curiosity.... What the deuce is the meaning of that revolver that you
had beside your plate while you were at breakfast?"

On hearing this, the _ex-gentil caballero's_ face once more darkened; he
bent his head until his beard touched his breast, and began to walk on
again without saying a word. After a considerable time he heaved a deep
and most pitiable sigh, and began to speak in a low voice:--

"You must know, Miguel, that for some months past my life has been a
hell! My wife (who, parenthetically, is the most loathsome woman that
God ever put into the world) has taken it into her head to be jealous of
me! Would you believe that such a piece of trumpery, an old shoe, has
the slightest right to be jealous of a man like me? Does it not seem to
you that I have done enough in burdening myself with her?

"Now, instead of thanking me for the sacrifice that I made in marrying
her, she is foolish enough to believe that I ought to adore her, to be
dying with love for her. And as this is the height of absurdity, and
cannot be, she is eating out my very soul. When I get up, when I lie
down, when I go out of the house