“Yes, yes, but the least possible.”
The two felt that the interview was ended; and Julio believed himself finally cast off. As in all critical situations, there was a tragic silence; Clothilde looked at the floor; Julio gazed at her with the yearning love, with which the dying look for the last time upon the familiar objects and the dear faces, never so beautiful as in that awful moment. Thus he gazed, long, long, taking her hand and kissing it with the respect of a priest for a holy thing. Then he passed the wicket of the little garden, and departed without once turning his head, staggering like a drunken man; he was lost on the broad pavement, his worn garments of the poor office hack, hanging in the sunlight in such folds as to throw into relief the narrow shoulders of the consumptive.
I am dismissed, he thought, and I am glad that it was with a “no.” What folly to think that a woman like Clothilde could ever care for a man like me! What can I offer her?—A worthless trifle, an illegal love, a legitimate wife, children, poverties! How could I pay her house rent, the most necessary expenses, the most trifling luxuries? Better, much better, that they despise me, the more I will occupy myself with my wife and my children, what is earned they will have; I will return to the path of rectitude, to my old companion; I will cure myself of this attack of love. And walking, walking, he reached the Alameda, seated himself in the Glorieta of San Diego, on a deserted bench, in front of two students, who were reading aloud.
“But what has happened to you, Señorita?” and the lie presenting itself for sole response; the lie which augments the crime and the risks of what is foreseen. Her situation was not new; the eternal sufferings, one day a little worse than another. Then, in the little alcove, where she had thought herself strong enough to resist, the encounter with Alberto’s portrait, a life-size bust photograph, in a plain frame, with an oil lamp and two bunches of violets on the bureau, upon which it stood. It was