“SO you know nothing about him?” asked the Swiss.

“Not a thing,” replied María Lucena. “He left here the very night they tried to arrest him, and he hasn’t showed up yet. They say that he and Pacheco kidnapped the Countess.”

“The devil! An abduction!”

“Yes. Let me tell you, that man disgusts me, and I wish I hadn’t met him.”

Paul Springer contemplated the pale face of the actress sympathetically.

“He’ll show up,” he said.

“I hope he never does!” she replied.

The Swiss was disturbed.

“How did you meet Quentin? Through the fracas he started here?”

“Yes. They told me that there had been a dispute between a young chap and a vile man who had insulted me. I asked Cornejo, the fellow who writes topical songs for the musical comedies, who my defender was, and he said: ‘I’ll show him to you.’ Every night I asked him: ‘Who is he? Who is he?’—but he never showed up. After awhile I got impatient and said to Cornejo: ‘Look here; you tell your friend that I want to meet him, that if he doesn’t come to the theatre, to go to my house, and that I live near here in a boarding house called[286] Mariquita’s House.’ Would you believe it? There I was, waiting day after day, and he never showed up!”

“You must have been indignant,” said Springer.

“Naturally! I said: ‘If he doesn’t know me, why did he defend me? And if he does know me, why doesn’t he come to see me?’”

“How did you get to meet him finally?”

“You’ll see; one day Cornejo came in here with Quentin, and introduced him to me as the man who had insulted me and had been struck by my defender. I said a lot of outrageous and insulting things to him, and just then a friend of his came in and greeted him with a ‘Hello, Quentin!’ Then I realized that he was my defender and we made friends.”

“Yes, he’s very fond of those farces.”

“Why did he do it? I can’t understand that man.”

“Nor does he understand himself, probably; but he’s a good fellow.”

At the very second that the Swiss was saying these words, Quentin entered the café, looked about him indifferently and came up to the table at which María Lucena and Springer were seated.

When she saw him, María suddenly turned red.

“Ah! So you’ve come at last!” she cried angrily. “Where have you been?”

“If you had had your way, my dear, I would have been in prison.”

“That’s where you ought to be always. Thief! May a nasty viper sting you! Tell me, what have you been doing all these days?”

“Why, I’ve been on a farm, hiding from the police.”

“I’m likely to believe that! You’ve been with a woman.[287]”

The procedure of extracting the truth with a lie produced results, for Quentin said candidly:

“Where did you find that out?”

“You see, it’s the truth! And now you are tired of her and have come back here. Well, son, you can clear out; for there’s no more meat on the hook for lack of a cat, and I want nothing more to do with you. I have more than enough men who are better than you are, who have more money than you have, and more heart.”

“I don’t deny it,” replied Quentin coldly.

“Ah! You don’t deny it? You don’t deny it?” she shouted, raising her voice in her fury. “But what do you think I am? What do you think?”

“Come, don’t shriek so,” said Quentin gently.

“I’ll shriek if I want to. Tell me, you evil-blooded scoundrel; what did you take me for? Do you think you can laugh at me like this?”

“That is admirable logic!” replied Quentin. “One believes here that his life is the axle of the universe; other people’s lives have no importance.”

“Why—”

“Please; I am talking. I left the café the other night, and thanks to the influence of Se?or Gálvez, with whom you were....”

“I!” said María. “That’s not true.”

“I myself saw you.”

“Where could you see me from?”

“From the door, my dear.”

“But you don’t know Gálvez!” she replied, believing that Quentin must have had the news at second-hand.

“True; but I know the waiter, and I asked him: ‘Who is the gentleman talking with María Lucena?’ And he answered: ‘Se?or Gálvez.’ So don’t lie about[288] it. Very well; thanks to the beneficent influence of that gentleman friend of yours, I was on the point of being carried off to prison, or of throwing myself into the river ... yet, I do not go screeching about the place—because I do not believe that my life can be the axle of the universe.”

“Fool, more than fool!”—she shouted. “I’ll pound your brains out this very minute!”

“You’ll pound nothing; and listen, if you will.”

“What for? You’re going to lie.”

“Very well then: don’t listen.”

“I wish they’d take you to prison and keep you there all your life with your head stuck through a pillory.”

“If you care to listen, I’ll tell you whom I was with.”

“I’m listening.”

&ld............