Pasa was descended from the proudest Spanish families in the country. Moreover, she had had unusual advantages. Two years in a New Orleans school had elevated her ambitions and fitted her for a fate above the ordinary maidens of her native land. And yet here she succumbed to the first red-haired scamp with a glib tongue and a charming smile that came along and courted her properly. Very soon Dicky took her to the little church on the corner of the plaza, and “Mrs. Maloney” was added to her string of distinguished names. And it was her fate to sit, with her patient, saintly eyes and figure like a bisque Psyche, behind the sequestered counter of the little shop, while Dicky drank and philandered with his frivolous acquaintances. The women, with their naturally fine instinct, saw a chance for vivisection, and delicately taunted her with his habits. She turned upon them in a beautiful, steady blaze of sorrowful contempt. “You meat-cows,” she said, in her level, crystal-clear tones; “you know nothing of a man. Your men are _maromeros_. They are fit only to roll cigarettes in the shade until the sun strikes and shrivels them up. They drone in your hammocks and you comb their hair and feed them with fresh fruit. My man is of no such blood. Let him drink of the wine. When he has taken sufficient of it to drown one of your _flaccitos_ he will come home to me more of a man than one thousand of your _pobrecitos_. _My_ hair he smooths and braids; to me he sings; he himself removes my _zapatos_, and there, there, upon each instep leaves a kiss. He holds— Oh, you will never understand! Blind ones who have never known a _man_.” Sometimes mysterious things happened at night about Dicky’s shop. While the front of it was dark, in the little room back of it Dicky and a few of his friends would sit about a table carrying on some kind of very quiet _negocios_ until quite late. Finally he would let them out the front door very carefully, and go upstairs to his little saint. These visitors were generally conspirator-like men with dark clothes and hats. Of course, these dark doings were noticed after a while, and talked about. Dicky seemed to care nothing at all for the society of the alien residents of the town. He avoided Goodwin, and his skilful escape from the trepanning story of Dr. Gregg is still referred to, in Coralio, as a masterpiece of lightning diplomacy. Many letters arrived, addressed to “Mr. Dicky Maloney,” or “Señor Dickee Maloney,” to the considerable pride of Pasa. That so many people should desire to write to him only confirmed her own suspicion that the light from his red head shone around the world. As to their contents she never felt curiosity. There was a wife for you!