"I'm in love with a necklace in a shop on Calle Mayor, and I don't want any other. I dream about it all the time. I never saw anything so wonderful! I tell you the man who gives me _that_, can have me."

"How much is it?"

"Fifteen thousand pesetas."

Then she fixed an inscrutable look on Darles, and added:

"I think this gentleman here is going to get it for me. Aren't you, Enrique?"

Candelas was about to laugh, but checked herself. Her penetrating eyes had just seen in the student's congested face something of the terrific inner struggle now possessing him. Darles was no longer able to contain himself. He got up to leave, and his eyes showed such despair and shame that Alicia took pity on him.

"I'll see you out," said she.

They left the little boudoir. When they got to the parlor, the student--who hardly knew what he was doing--seized the girl's hands and covered them with kisses. He began to weep desperately.

"Alicia! Alicia!" he stammered, "what makes you so cruel to me? I'm dying for you! Alicia! Oh, why can't you love me?"

But she had already recovered from her brief emotion, and now tried to rid herself of him.

"Come, come, now," she exclaimed, "what a fool you are!"

"I adore you, Alicia! Heart of my soul!"

"Come now, be good! Keep quiet--good-by! You're getting me into trouble!"

"But I've got to see you--see you!"

"All right! Only _do_ keep quiet! Good-by--keep quiet, I tell you!

Candelas might get wise to something, and I don't want her making fun of us!"

She spoke in a low tone, and at the same time kept pushing Darles toward the door. He murmured:

"Are you sending me away forever?"

"No."

"Yes, you are, too! You're trying to get rid of me!"

"No, no; but for heaven's sake, get out!"

"Yes, you are; you're throwing me out--getting rid of me because I'm poor, because I don't know how to win you! But how _can_ I win you, if you won't give me a little time?"

She was growing angry; her face became hard. The student clasped his hands and cried:

"You're doing a wicked thing to send me away like this!"

"All right, all right----"

"A wicked thing, because any man that loves as much as I do can do anything. Even if I _am_ poor, some time I might be rich. Even if I _am_ obscure, I might become a noted artist, if you wanted me to. I'd kill, I'd steal for you!"

"For heaven's sake, shut up and get out!"

"Yes, I'll go because you tell me to. But--hero or thief--I'd be anything to stay with you, anything for you! Alicia, oh, my Alicia, I'll do anything you want me to--yes, by G.o.d, if I get twenty years for it!"

The poor, innocent young chap, without suspecting it, was uttering a great phrase; he was laying all his youth at the feet of this ungrateful woman--offering her the same treasure of youth to gain which Faust lost his soul.

Alicia already had the door open.

"Good-by," she whispered. "Do get out! Manuel might come!"

"When am I going to see you again?"

"Oh, some time."

"When?"

"I don't know. _Won't_ you go?"

"To-morrow?"

"No."

"Tell me! Tell me what day! I'll be patient. I'll wait. When can I see you?"

She hesitated. Ardently he insisted:

"When?"

"Oh, you make me sick!"

"Come, have it over with. Tell me, when?"

A look of perdition, of madness, gleamed in the green eyes of the Magdalene. This look seemed to illuminate her whole face, to change into a smile on the tyrannical line of her lips.

"When?" he repeated.

Without knowing why, the student was afraid; but almost at once he gathered himself together.

"Tell me, tell me, when?" he stammered.

"I don't know."

"You've got to tell me!"

"You're crazy!"

"No matter, tell me, when?"

Insidiously she replied: