He was still pacing the garden when Federigo came back, heated and triumphant, with his cloak on his shoulder and a bag under his arm.

“Nearly three hundred piastres!” he cried, clearing the garden in a succession of bounds.

His sister had been asleep on the sofa, and sprang up in ecstasy at the intelligence; and they proceeded then with childish glee to spread out the silver on the table, and divide it into three.  When Salve absolutely refused to take more than his one piastre back again, there came actually a look of humble admiration into the senorita’s eyes.  She could not comprehend such an act of self-sacrifice, although she seemed to vaguely feel that there was something noble about it.  After a moment’s consideration she held out her hand and said—­

“Senor, give me the piastre you have in your hand, and I will give you another in return for it.”

He did so, and she took it and kissed it repeatedly.

“I shall play with this one to-morrow evening,” she cried joyfully, and put it into her bosom.

She carried out her intention, and came home beaming, with a whole bagful of piastres.

It seemed that the family lived only by play.  The son, it is true, was in connection with one or other of the political parties of the town, with the prospect of an appointment as officer in a volunteer corps if any rising took place; but that did not in the meantime bring in money, and how they managed to get along when luck went against them it was not easy to see.

Salve meanwhile was becoming rather tired of being on land.  The seclusion had suited him well enough at first, until the senorita had begun to pay him attentions; but now that she evidently remained at home all day solely on his account, to dress at him, and play off all sorts of coquetry upon him, he began to find it intolerable; and when the Juno at last had sailed, he announced one day that he meant to go down to the harbour and look for employment.

The senorita turned pale, but soon recovered her self-possession, and even joked with him about it; and later on her brother persuaded him to defer his intention for three days, until he had attended a gathering of Federigo’s friends, which was to take place one night down in one of the suburbs.

That evening, when her brother had gone out as usual to play, the senorita sat down in the window of the room where Salve was, and through which he would have to pass to go into the garden.  She had undone her luxuriant hair, and had put on a languishing look, and every now and then thrummed absently on her guitar, humming gently to herself as she fixed her black eyes upon him.  Salve saw himself in a manner besieged, and felt half inclined to brush past her and escape into the garden; but it would have seemed too deliberately unfriendly.  The only sign which betrayed his consciousness of the situation was the somewhat hasty way in which he puffed his cigarette.