And he not even her novio as far as the world knew! Though, even in that case, it would have been scandal enough. But the dignified old lady, respected and admired by the first families, would have been still more shocked if she could have heard the words they were exchanging. “Did you say I lost sight of the aim? I have only one aim in the world.” She made an almost imperceptible negative movement of her head, still staring across the street at the Avellanos’s house, grey, marked with decay, and with iron bars like a prison. “And it would be so easy of attainment,” he continued, “this aim which, whether knowingly or not, I have always had in my heart--ever since the day when you snubbed me so horribly once in Paris, you remember.” A slight smile seemed to move the corner of the lip that was on his side. “You know you were a very terrible person, a sort of Charlotte Corday in a schoolgirl’s dress; a ferocious patriot. I suppose you would have stuck a knife into Guzman Bento?” She interrupted him. “You do me too much honour.” “At any rate,” he said, changing suddenly to a tone of bitter levity, “you would have sent me to stab him without compunction.” “_Ah, par exemple!_” she murmured in a shocked tone. “Well,” he argued, mockingly, “you do keep me here writing deadly nonsense. Deadly to me! It has already killed my self-respect. And you may imagine,” he continued, his tone passing into light banter, “that Montero, should he be successful, would get even with me in the only way such a brute can get even with a man of intelligence who condescends to call him a gran’ bestia three times a week. It’s a sort of intellectual death; but there is the other one in the background for a journalist of my ability.” “If he is successful!” said Antonia, thoughtfully.