“This is little Manuel, my sweet little Manuelito,” she answered in a low voice, and buried her face in the child’s black curls that she might not have to look at Wilhelm.  She covered little Manuelito with kisses, and then pushed him gently over to Wilhelm, in whom the most conflicting emotions were struggling for the mastery.  It was impossible to feel any ill-will toward this captivating mite with the dark Bronzino face, and yet to Wilhelm he seemed to represent a distinct act of treachery.  How could she have been so underhand as to hide the fact from him that her connection with the fashion-plate diplomat had not been without results!  He made as if to draw away from the boy, who stood staring nervously at him, but the next moment his natural love of children prevailed, and he clasped the sweet little fellow to his breast.

“Such a lovely child!” he said, “and so young, and in need of a mother’s care.  Why does it not live with you?”

“He lives with a sister of his father,” she answered, hardly above her breath.

“And you let it go?”

“The father would not let me keep it.  And I could not do anything against it because—­it is not registered as my child, and does not bear my name.”

The past, to which Wilhelm and Pilar had closed their eyes till now, presented itself that afternoon in incontestably lively form before them.  Dispelled was the artificial fabric of their dream of a love that was as old as life itself—­dispelled the poetic figment that they were in the honeymoon of a young pure union of the heart!  These three children told a tale of Pilar in which Wilhelm bore no part, and the chapters of that story bore different names, as did the children themselves.

Pilar divined easily enough what was passing in Wilhelm’s mind at sight of the children.  She never let them come to the house again, but henceforth went to see them at their respective homes.  He was sure that they liked coming to the Boulevard Pereire, and was sorry that they should miss this pleasure on his account.  Pilar begged him, however, not to allude to the subject again—­he was dearer to her than her children, and there was nothing she would not do to spare him a moment’s unpleasantness.

The first visitor whom Wilhelm saw in Pilar’s house was a little tubby gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a rosette in his buttonhole, composed of sixteen different colored ribbons at the very lowest computation.  He enjoyed the privilege of coming at any hour of the day, and being instantly admitted to the boudoir.  He was introduced to Wilhelm as Don Antonio Gorra, and Pilar explained afterward that Don Antonio was a lawyer, an old friend of her family, and that he conducted her business affairs for her.  For a time she had long daily consultations, to which Wilhelm was not invited.  As soon as he left, she would come to Wilhelm with a significant and mysterious air, evidently expecting that he would ask what all this putting together of heads might mean.  As he did not evince the slightest curiosity, she grew impatient at last, and asked with assumed lightness: