on the program, were munching caramels and staring in wonderment at the old man.  There he was, the arch enemy of law and order!  The man whose name it was bad form to mention at their afternoon teas!  Who would have supposed he had such a kindly, harmless face?  How easily, with what naturalness and grace, he wore his frock coat!  Incredible!...  In the diplomatic gallery a solitary lady!  She was extravagantly attired in a huge picture hat with black plumes.  Almost hidden behind her was a fair haired youth, his hair parted in the middle, his dress the height of correctness and foppery.  Some rich tourist-woman probably!  She was directly opposite Rafael’s bench.  He could see that her gloved hand rested on the railing, as she moved her fan to and fro with an almost discourteous noise.  The rest of her body was lost in the darkness of the gallery.  She bent back from time to time to whisper and laugh with her escort.

Somewhat reassured by the empty appearance of the house, Rafael scarcely paid any further attention to the orator.  He had guessed all that the man would say, and he was satisfied.  The outline of the long answer he had prepared would not in the least be affected.

The old man was inflexible and unchangeable.  For thirty years he had been saying the same thing over and over again.  Rafael had read that speech any number of times.  The man had made a close study of national evils and abuses, and had formulated a complete and pitiless criticism of them in which the absurdities stood out by force of contrast.  With the conviction that truth is forever the same and that there is nothing ever so novel as the truth, he had kept repeating his criticism year after year in a pure, concise, sonorous style that seemed to scatter the ripe perfume of the classics about the muggy Chamber.

He spoke in the name of the future Spain, of a Spain that would have no kings, because it would be governed by itself; that would pay no priests, because, respecting freedom of conscience, it would recognize all cults and give privileges to none.  And with a simple, unaffected urbanity, as if he were constructing rhyming verses, he would pair statistics off, underscoring the absurd manner in which the nation was taking leave of a century of revolution during which all peoples had done things while Spain was lying stagnant.

More money, he pointed out, was spent on the maintenance of the Royal House than upon public education.  Conclusion:  the support of a single family in idleness was worth more than the awakening of an entire people to modern life!  In Madrid, in the very capital, within sight of every one of his hearers, the schools remained in filthy hovels, while churches and convents rose overnight on the principal streets like magic palaces.  During twenty-odd years of Restoration, more than fifty completely new, religious edifices, girding the capital with a belt of glittering structures, had been built.  On the other hand,