Again the Maestro's voice rose in a few crisp sentences, and there was no answer to them, only a faint snivelling, which diminished gradually. The door reopened slowly, and the Maestro and Ledesma came in together, arm in arm--that is, the Maestro's arm was twined flexibly but inexorably about Ledesma's limp member. Ferocious triumph beamed upon the face of the gentle pedagogue; Ledesma was wilted, tear-stained, and despairing. At the same moment, radiant, smiling, alert as a kitten, Señorita Constancia appeared at the outer door. She wore a long-train blue-silk skirt, a cream-coloured camisa through whose shimmering, puffing sleeves her arms glowed like frosted gold; over her bare shoulders a jusi pañuelo was lightly laid, the two ends meeting upon her breast in a golden brooch. She swept gracefully through the room, her bracelets clinking on her wrists, toward Huston, whom she had met before, shook hands with him Anglo-Saxon style, bowed to the Maestro, calmly ignored Ledesma, and whirred down into the depths of a cane chair. "Huston," said the Maestro, gravely, "I want you to marry these two people." But the missionary, so far petrified with wonder, suddenly rebelled. "Look here, Paul," he burst out, "what kind of a thing are you getting me into? To me it looks--well, at least irregular, very irregular. To tell the truth, old fellow, your actions seem to me--er--well, singular, very singular. I--you----" "You just leave this thing to me," interrupted the Maestro, with an authoritative nod toward the poor churchman, whose protesting attitude was fast oozing away in the subtle sense of inferiority still sticking to him from the days when the Maestro was gridiron captain and star and he a humble "scrub"; "you just leave that to me. Go ahead with the ceremony; that's all you have to do!" But, with the courage of the meek, Huston fought on. "I at least must know," he said, firmly, "whether these two people consent to this--er--union." He turned to the Maestra. "Do you want to marry this young man?" he asked, pointing to the snivelling Ledesma. "Oh, yes," answered the Maestra, suavely, "he must marry me." "And you," went on Huston, turning to Ledesma, "do you wish to take this maid to wife?" Ledesma opened his mouth like a carp, then shut it again. He looked fearfully toward the Maestro. The Maestro glared significantly. Ledesma's hands began to wring each other; beads of perspiration appeared about his lips. "I--I----" he stammered. "Look a-here," thundered the Maestro, impatiently; "what the deuce is the need of all this fuss? He's got to marry her, that's all. He's got to marry her, do you understand?" he repeated, a vision of his ruined schools aflame in his mind; "it's the kind of marriage that's _got_ to be, catch on?"