So that, when she faced the poor, ignorant, as she secretly considered Estrella, girl, it was with an air of superiority as belonging to a higher race than she, for it is a fact that uneducated persons feel any elevation above their fellows much more strongly than those who have had more insight into the humble attainments of even the wisest of human beings, for those who have been permitted to climb the heights of thought have had a glimpse of the vastness and unattainable grandeur of which even the highest human intellect must only be a spectator ... an humble and admiring witness of the matchless beauty and majestic splendor that dwell beyond and yet beyond the vision of the keenest human imagination. But old Mage seldom allowed herself even to wonder about what she could not understand, being content with the plane of existence upon which she found herself and finding amusement and profit as well in attending to the various small duties of her daily life as she performed those duties through love and pride. Having seated the girl who was almost overpowered, already, by the unknown glamour of wealthy surroundings, she proceeded to follow out her own ideas and to attempt to satisfy her own curiosity before apprising Ruth of the arrival of her invited guest. She began by commiserating the girl upon her recent loss, little dreaming that, in this way, she would find out far more than had been her own desire, for old Mage, while she had never liked the young man who, for the past few months, had been an almost daily visitor at the home she dearly loved, yet had tried to think that her young lady had chosen wisely, even if unconventionally, when she had married him, as it was very hard for her ever to really question any object upon which Ruth had set her heart, it having been one of the criticisms of the parents of the little girl that old Mage had always indulged her slightest whim and always satisfied at least her own conscience by finding some good reason for the indulgence; in the present instance, she had often said to herself: "My poor child is alone so much with her own thoughts and what she gets out of all those big books," for what anyone could find in the way of company in a book which required so much labor, in her own case, to decipher at all was a mystery to her, "and she needs company ... a woman needs a man around to make love to her and this fellow is good at that what with his guitar and his mandolin and his fine voice, not to speak of his wonderful dark eyes and his curly black hair and his strong, powerful figure ... it is too bad that he is only a native Cuban instead of an American ... that is too bad ... but..." she would end, brightly, "he can be naturalized if we ever go back to the States." So, now, when she turned to Estrella with the conventional question as to the identity of her lover on her ready tongue, she little dreamed of the consequences: