In short, although Montalvo was a man who really disliked cruelty, he could upon occasion be cruel to the last degree; although he appreciated friends, and desired to have them, he could be the foulest of traitors.  Although without a cause he would do no hurt to a living thing, yet if that cause were sufficient he would cheerfully consign a whole cityful to death.  No, not cheerfully, he would have regretted their end very much, and often afterwards might have thought of it with sympathy and even sorrow.  This was where he differed from the majority of his countrymen in that age, who would have done the same thing, and more brutally, from honest principle, and for the rest of their lives rejoiced at the memory of the deed.

Montalvo had his ruling passion; it was not war, it was not women; it was money.  But here again he did not care about the money for itself, since he was no miser, and being the most inveterate of gamblers never saved a single stiver.  He wanted it to spend and to stake upon the dice.  Thus again, in variance to the taste of most of his countrymen, he cared little for the other sex; he did not even like their society, and as for their passion and the rest he thought it something of a bore.  But he did care intensely for their admiration, so much so that if no better game were at hand, he would take enormous trouble to fascinate even a serving maid or a fish girl.  Wherever he went it was his ambition to be reported the man the most admired of the fair in that city, and to attain this end he offered himself upon the altar of numerous love affairs which did not amuse him in the least.  Of course, the indulgence of this vanity meant expense, since the fair require money and presents, and he who pursues them should be well dressed and horsed and able to do things in the very finest style.  Also their relatives must be entertained, and when they were entertained impressed with the sense that they had the honour to be guests of a grandee of Spain.

Now that of a grandee has never been a cheap profession; indeed, as many a pauper peer knows to-day, rank without resources is a terrific burden.  Montalvo had the rank, for he was a well-born man, whose sole heritage was an ancient tower built by some warlike ancestor in a position admirably suited to the purpose of the said ancestor, namely, the pillage of travellers through a neighbouring mountain pass.  When, however, travellers ceased to use that pass, or for other reasons robbery became no longer productive, the revenues of the Montalvo family declined till at the present date they were practically nil.  Thus it came about that the status of the last representative of this ancient stock was that of a soldier of fortune of the common type, endowed, unfortunately for himself, with grand ideas, a gambler’s fatal fire, expensive tastes, and more than the usual pride of race.