Don Andres, naturally, was the first to speak: 

“You approve of what you’ve done?”

And seeing that Rafael, like a coward, was trying to pretend innocent astonishment, asking “what” he had done, observing that he had come to Valencia on a matter of business, the old man broke into a rage.

“Now, see here, don’t you go lying to me:  either we’re men or we’re not men.  If you think you’ve acted properly, you ought to stand up for it and say so.  Don’t imagine you’re going to pull the wool over my eyes and then run off with that woman to God knows where.  I’ve found you and I’m not going to let you go.  I want you to know the truth.  Your mother is sick abed; she tipped me off and I caught the first train to get here.  The whole house is upside down!  At first it was thought a robbery had been committed.  By this time the whole city must be agog about you.  Come now!...  What do you say to that?  Do you want to kill your mother?  Well, you’re going about it right!  Good God!  And this is what they call a ’boy of talent,’ a ‘young man of promise’!  How much better it would have been if you were a dunce like me or your father—­but a dunce at least who knows how to get a woman if he has to, without making a public ass of himself!”

Then he went into detail.  Rafael’s mother had gone to the old chest to get some money for one of her laborers.  Her cry of horror and alarm had thrown the whole house into an uproar.  Don Andres had been hastily summoned.  Suspicions against the servants, a “third degree” for the whole lot, all of them protesting and weeping, in outrage!  Until finally dona Bernarda sank to a chair in a swoon, whispering into her adviser’s ear: 

“Rafael is not in the house.  He has gone ... perhaps never to return.  I am sure of it—­he took the money!”

While the others were getting the sobbing mother to bed, and sending for the doctor, don Andres had made for the station to catch the express.  He could tell from the way people looked at him that everybody knew what had been going on.  Gossip had already connected the excitement in the Brull mansion with Rafael’s taking the early train!  He had been seen by several persons, in spite of his precautions.

“Well, is the Hon. don Rafael Brull, member from Alcira, satisfied with his morning’s work?  Don’t you think the laugh your enemies have raised deserves an encore!”

For all his bitter sarcasm the old man spoke in a faltering voice, and seemed on the verge of tears.  The labor of his entire life, the great victories won with don Ramon, that political power which had been so carefully built up and sustained over decades, was about to crumble to ruins; all because of a light-headed, erratic boy who had handed to the first skirt who came along everything that belonged to him and everything that belonged to his friends as well.

Rafael had gone into the interview in an aggressive mood, ready to answer with plain talk if that sodden idiot should go too far in his recriminations.  But the sincere grief of the old man touched him deeply.  Don Andres, who resembled Rafael’s father as the cat resembles the tiger, could think of nothing but Brull politics; and he was almost sobbing as he saw the danger which the prestige of the Brull House was running.