José loved the child. The girl was affectionate in an independent kind of way and the old man wanted some unchecked outlet for the kindness of his heart. She reminded him also of his sister, who in having left his home early he remembered best as just such another girl. To Dolores her husband's niece was interesting principally as a costly memorial of an unheard-of concession to conjugal weakness: a concession that must be repaid to her by years of meek obedience. She was a strange product of ignorance and shopkeeping instincts. She was the daughter of a man looked upon in his native town as imbued with western ideas, a man very clever and audacious. In fact the only really enterprising ship-chandler of poetical Seville. She could read, even in French, with assurance—she could write with, not an altogether fatal, hesitation—she could cast up sums, in addition, in her husband's books with the ease of natural aptitude revelling in a charming occupation. She was prejudiced, unforgiving and knew how best to assert her personality against José. The gentle combatant of the glorious Philippine wars, accustomed to discipline of a sort, was not a very rebellious subject. Still there were points on which he dared to have his will—sometimes, even, his way. But with the arrival of Rita even the shadow of imperfect freedom departed from him. The astute Dolores soon noticed the strength of his affection for the child, and from that time Rita's comfort, education, her needs, her welfare became in Dolores's hand so many irresistible instruments serving to grind José into very small dust. To the consideration of the child's happiness he gave up his tastes, his opinions, his comforts—even his habits; all—but one! Abnegation has limits. To save Rita from unjust scoldings, from unnecessary slappings, from being shut up cruelly in a dark room or unnecessarily deprived of her supper he would give up his plans of business, his yearly journeys (those green oases of his life), would consent to have his opinion on wine or olives impugned, sneered at, overruled; but he would not give up his evening visits to a café where his countrymen used to congregate. Dolores with the prudence of an accomplished tyrant gave way on that point: for a man must not be robbed of every incentive to endure the burden of existence if he is to remain a fit subject for autocratic rule.

Every evening in the festive glare of gas-lights, amongst the polish of tall mirrors, the gleam of gildings, the cheerfulness of white marble tables intensified by the glowing, rich note of colour in the crimson plush of the seats, José luxuriated at his ease, enjoying his short-lived liberty, his fleeting sense of self-respect, in the midst of men who would listen, without unkind remarks, to what he had to say. He was an extreme, a ferocious Legitimist, ready, theoretically, to pay the price of war, famine and conflagration for the triumph of his ideas. The sonorous periods of his speech rang with the words extolling "our mother the Holy Church" and the "Rey neto" in strange rhapsodies; while the aproned waiters circulated in the smoke and murmur of the café, clattering with the saucers, beer-glasses and coffee cups which they distributed smartly upon crowded tables with an air of bored disdain. José was happy every evening—and all day (more fortunate in that than most men) he had the certitude of that happiness to help him through his trials. It may be said without exaggeration that he lived only for the joy of these moments and—more unselfishly—to watch over Rita.

It is hard to say what the wild girl of Basque mountains, transplanted into the heavy-scented but sordid atmosphere of the house in Passy, would have become had it not been that José found a good friend for the child in one of his café acquaintances of the same political way of thinking with himself. Señor Malagon was socially superior to the seller of oranges being a considerable leather merchant from Cordova. His circle of acquaintance was extensive, for his wife was French and they moved in a very respectable, well-to-do and proper world of solvent business men possessing sociable wives. Mrs. Malagon, a vivacious and sentimental person, was immensely interested in Rita's story as told her by her husband. Poor José wearied all his friends with the eulogies of his niece. Malagon, a grave man with a cameo profile and a bluish chin, listened patiently, raising, from time to time, towards his lips, a beringed hand holding a cigar. José confided to him his difficulties in hints, in half-admissions of his wife's impracticability. He spoke, discreet, longing for advice, mindful of his out-of-doors dignity but ready to sacrifice even that for the good of his niece. Señor Malagon—imperturbable—heard, pondered for a long time: impenetrably sympathetic, cautiously dumb. But the little Mrs. Malagon would not admit any caution. They must befriend the girl. The daughter of a smuggler killed in the exercise of his functions? How wicked and romantic! And an orphan? How sad! Brought up by a solitary priest in a lonely valley? It made her shiver, but in that case there could be nothing wrong there. "We must help your friend about her, Henry," she said. "He is not my friend," protested Henry; "he's just a right-thinking and respectable Spaniard with whom I played dominoes every evening for the last year or two. That's all." "And the girl is pretty?" asked the wife. The husband admitted she was. Strange but pretty. He had called on Ortega and saw her there. "Business, you know, my dear," he explained. "Could one speak to that horrid Mrs. Ortega? Could one really venture to go and see her?" wondered Mrs. Malagon. "H'm! She is very ... proper. Common but ... respectable," admitted Henry, with deliberate heaviness of diction. He did not want to commit himself to anything very precise. Personally he had no objection. It did not seem very necessary. Those people were by no means poor. Not at all. Well off, rather. Still, if his wife liked.... Malagon, married late in life, spoiled his wife—paternally.

In this way, after many preliminary manoeuvres of cunning diplomacy on the part of José, it came to pass that Mrs. Malagon's serviceable, one-horse landau was seen at last, waiting before the wide archway of the Passy house. It cannot be said that Dolores was very gracious. She could no more smile graciously than a cockatoo; a bird she resembled somewhat, when viewed from one side, by the irritated curve of her nose and by the invarying cold fury of her round and pitiless eye. But she was decently polite and made no vehement objection to Mrs. Malagon's desires. She only remarked afterwards that the little Frenchwoman was a fool—to which opinion the unprincipled José hastened to assent. Of course she would not part altogether with the child. Indeed it was not demanded of her. She had no objection however to be relieved now and then from the bother of looking after the girl. "Unruly minx! Well, if your sister was like that I am glad I never knew her." José, pretending not to hear, would slink out, to swear and stamp with rage in some secluded place. From sheer affection for Rita he was reduced to a pass where he dared not protest against any abuse, any insult, any blasphemy. He was afraid of what his wife might do. She was capable of going to these people, of abusing them foully, of taking away the child, of making an awful disturbance. She would break the windows perhaps! Quién sabe?