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 little poésie in life for us here. We have not much of that.”

Madame Olivares stopped crying. She raised her head and sat drying her eyes. Suddenly she took hold of one of the buttons on the Bishop’s cassock and began twisting it with nervous fingers.

“Father,” she said timidly, “what is the youngest I could possibly be, to be Inez’s mother?”

The Bishop could not pronounce the verdict; he hesitated, flushed, then passed it on to O’Reilly with an open gesture of his fine white hand.

“Fifty-two, Señora Olivares,” said the young man respectfully. “If I can get you to admit that, and stick to it, I feel sure we will win our case.”

“Very well, Mr. O’Reilly.” She bowed her head. As her visitors rose, she sat looking down at the dust-covered rugs. “Before everybody!” she murmured, as if to herself.

When they were tramping home, Father Joseph said that as for him, he would rather combat the superstitions of a whole Indian pueblo than the vanity of one white woman.

“And I would rather do almost anything than go through such a scene again,” said the Bishop with a frown. “I don’t think I ever assisted at anything so cruel.”

Boyd O’Reilly defeated the Olivares brothers and