Don Andres took charge of settling Rafael in Valencia when he began his university studies.  The dream of old don Jaime, disillusioned in the son, would be fulfilled in the third generation!

“This one at least will be a lawyer!” said dona Bernarda, who in the old days had imbibed don Jaime’s eagerness for the university degree, which to her seemed like a title of nobility for the family.

And lest the corruption of the city should lead the son astray as it had done Ramon in his student days, she would send don Andres frequently to the capital, and write letter after letter to her Valencian friends, particularly to a canon of her intimate acquaintance, asking them not to lose sight of the boy.

But Rafael was good behavior itself; a model boy, a “serious” young man, the good canon assured the mother.  The distinctions and the prizes that came to him in Alcira continued to pursue him in Valencia; and besides, don Ramon and his wife learned from the papers of the triumphs achieved by their son in the debating society, a nightly gathering of law students in a university hall, where future Solons wrangled on such themes as “Resolved:  that the French Revolution was more of a good than an evil,” or “Resolved, that Socialism is superior to Christianity.”

Some terrible youths, who had to get home before ten o’clock to escape a whipping, declared themselves rabid socialists and frightened the beadles with curses on the institution of property—­all rights reserved, of course, to apply, as soon as they got out of college, for some position under the government as registrar of deeds or secretary of prefecture!  But Rafael, ever sane and a congenital “moderate,” was not of those fire-brands; he sat on “the Right” of the august assembly of Wranglers, maintaining a “sound” attitude on all questions, thinking what he thought “with” Saint Thomas and “with” other orthodox sages whom his clerical Mentor pointed out to him.

These triumphs were announced by telegraph in the Party papers, which, to garnish the chief’s glory and avoid suspicion of “inspiration,” always began the article with:  “According to a despatch printed in the Metropolitan press ...”

“What a boy!” the priests of Alcira would say to dona Bernarda.  “What a silver tongue!  You’ll see; he’ll be a second Manterola!”

And whenever Rafael came home for the holidays or on vacation, each time taller than before, dressed like a fashion-plate and with mannerisms that she took for the height of distinction, the saintly mother would say to herself with the satisfaction of a woman who knows what it means to be homely: 

“What a handsome chap he’s getting to be.  All the rich girls in town will be after him.  He’ll have his pick of them.”

Dona Bernarda felt proud of her Rafael, a tall youth, with delicate yet powerful hands, large eyes, an aquiline nose, a curly beard and a certain leisurely, undulating grace of movement that suggested one of those young Arabs of the white cloak and elegant babooshes, who constitute the native aristocracy of Spain’s African colonies.