Don Andres, her advisor, commented upon the change with a gloating “I told you so.”  What had he always said, when dona Bernarda, in the confiding intimacies of that friendship which amounted almost to a senile, a tranquil, a distantly respectful passion, would complain of Rafael’s contrariness?  That it would all pass; that it was a young man’s whim; that youth must have its fling!  What was the use?  Rafael hadn’t studied to be a monk!  Many boys his age, and even older ones, were far worse!...  And the old gentleman smiled, for he was thinking of his own easy conquests with the wretched flock of dirty, unkempt peasant girls who wrapped the oranges in the shipping houses of Alcira.  “You see, dona Bernarda, you suffered too much with don Ramon.  You are a bit too exacting with Rafael.  Let him have a good time!  Let him enjoy himself!  He’ll get tired of that chorus girl soon enough, pretty as she is.  Then you can take hold and start him right!”

Dona Bernarda once again had reason to appreciate the talent of her counsellor.  His predictions, made with a cynicism that always caused the pious lady to blush, had been fulfilled to the letter!

She, too, was sure it was all over.  Her son was not so blind as his father had been.  He had soon wearied of a “lost woman” like Leonora; he had decided it was not worth while to quarrel with his mamma over so trifling a matter, and have his enemies discredit him on that account.  He was returning to the path of duty; and to express her unbounded joy, the good woman could not pamper him enough.

“And how about ... that?” her friends would ask her, mysteriously.

“Nothing,” she would answer, with a proud smile.  “Three weeks have gone by and he hasn’t shown the slightest inclination to go back.  No, Rafael is a good boy.  All that was just a young one’s notion.  If you could only see him keeping me company in the parlor every afternoon!  An angel!  Good as pie!  He spends hour after hour chatting with me and Matias’s daughter.”

And then, broadening her smile and winking cunningly, she would add: 

“I think there’s something doing in that direction.”

And indeed something was “doing”; at least, to judge by appearances.  Bored with wandering from room to room through the house, sick of his books, with which he would spend hours and hours turning pages without really seeing a word that was printed on them, Rafael had taken refuge in the sitting-room where his mother did her sewing, supervising a complicated piece of embroidery that Remedios was making.

The girl’s submissive simplicity appealed to Rafael.  Her ingenuousness gave him a sense of freshness and repose.  She was a cosy secluded refuge where he might sleep after a tempest.  His mother’s satisfied smile was there to encourage him in this feeling.  Never had he seen her so kind and so communicative.  The pleasure of having him once more safe and obedient in her hands had mollified that disposition so stern by nature as to verge on rudeness.