shield, as shining and luminous as a sheet of crystal, showed vigor and strength under feminine grace of line.  There she was in all her goddess-like majesty—­the Pallas of a mythology of the North, as beautiful as heroism, as terrible as war.  Rafael could understand the mad enthusiasm, the electrified commotion of her audiences as they saw her stepping out among the rocks of painted canvas, setting the boards a-tremble with her lithe footsteps, rudely raising her lance and shield above the white wings of her helmet and shouting the cry of the Valkyries—­“Hojotoho!” which, repeated in the green tranquility of that Valencian orchard, seemed to make the lanes of foliage quiver with a tremor of admiring ecstasy.

Across the whole world, and everywhere in triumph, that whimsical, adventuresome, madcap woman, of whose life as an actress so many stories were told, had carried the arrogance of the virgin warrior-maid conceived by the master Wagner.  In a bulky book, of uneven irregular pages, where the singer with the minute conscientiousness of a child, had preserved everything the newspapers of the globe had written about her, Rafael found echos of her stormy ovations.  Many of the printed clippings were yellow with age, but they could still evoke before his dazzled eyes, visions of theaters packed with elegant, sensuous women, as beautiful as Wotan’s daughter in the coat-of-mail; atmospheres hot with light and enthusiasm, a-glitter with sparkling jewels and sparkling eyes; and in the background, with her helmet and her lance, the dominating Valkyrie herself greeted with frantic applause and limitless admiration.

In the collection were newspaper reproductions of the singer’s photographs, biographical notices, critical articles relating to the triumphs of the celebrated diva Leonora Brunna—­for such was the stage name adopted by Doctor Moreno’s daughter—­clipping after clipping printed in Castilian or South American Spanish; columns of the clear, close print of English papers; paragraphs on the coarse, thin paper of the French and Italian press; compact masses of Gothic characters, which troubled Rafael’s eyes, and unintelligible Russian letters, that, to him, looked like whimsical scrawls of a childish hand.  And all in praise of Leonora, one universal tribute to the talent of that woman, who was looked upon so scornfully by the citified peasants of the boy’s native town.  A divinity, indeed!  And Rafael felt a growing hatred and contempt for the gross, uncouth virtue of those who had left her in a social vacuum.  Why had she come to Alcira, anyway?  What could possibly have led her to abandon a world of triumphs, where she was admired by everyone, for the life, virtually, of a barnyard?