Romoldo being a young and rather attractive man, and Tikkia such a female pirate, I insist that my failure to suspect a romance is at least partially justified; and certainly never by word or glance did they betray the least interest in each other.  But some days after my establishment had begun to run smoothly, one of the military ladies asked me to dinner.  The punkah string was pulled by a murderous-looking ex-insurrecto, who fixed me with a basilisk glance, half entreaty, half reproach.  It became so painful that toward the end of dinner I asked my hostess if his expression was due to his general frame of mind or to a special aversion toward pedagogues.  She replied that he was probably bracing himself to approach me on a topic consuming his very vitals, or as much of them, at least, as may be expressed in absent-mindedness.  Tikkia was his matrimonio, and I, the maestra had taken her and given her to Romoldo, and the twain lived in my house!  The lady added that Tikkia was not matrimonio en iglesia—­that is, married in church—­but only matrimonio pro tem.

Pedro came into the sala after dinner and made his petition with humility.  He extolled his kindness to the ungrateful Tikkia, and denounced Romoldo as a fiend and liar.  He tried hard to weep, but did not succeed.

0 tempora!  O mores! Such are the broadening effects of travel and two short months in the Orient.  Conceive of the old maid schoolteacher in America assuming the position of judge in a matrimonial—­or extra-matrimonial—­scandal of this sort.

I promised justice to the sniffling Pedro, and told him to call for it next day at ten A.M.  Like me, he supposed it would take the form of Tikkia.  But when I reached home and summoned the culprits before the bar of a “moral middle class,” they were not disconcerted in the least.  Romoldo stood upon high moral ground.  Tikkia might or might not be married.  It was nothing to him, and he did not know.  She was an orphan of his acquaintance to whom he wished to do a kindness.  Tikkia promptly drew up her skirt over the unexposed knee and showed a filthy sore which she said was caused by Pedro’s playful habit of dragging her about on stony ground by the hair.  Moreover she stood upon her legal rights.  She was not matrimonio en iglesia, and she had a right to leave Pedro when she chose.

Pedro came next day at ten A.M., but he did not get justice.  On the contrary, justice, as embodied in Tikkia, stood at the head of the stairs and said, “No quiero” as often as I (and Pedro) turned our imploring eyes upon her.