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Rh Si, Señor," said the faithful servant.

"And after Maestro Ledesma has entered the house here, not before, mind you, Tolio, you go to Señorita Constancia and give her this note," went on the Maestro, giving the boy the second slip of paper.

"Si, Señor," said the boy, carefully taking one note in his left hand and the other in the right.

The two friends were again left alone, but the spell had been broken and they did not renew their outpourings. The Maestro was the prey of a fixed idea. He paced back and forth like a lion in his cage, full of the fever of resolve. At intervals he punched his left palm with his right fist, then varied the performance by punching his right palm with his left fist; incoherent exclamations growled in his throat: "He's got to, that's all; things are going to smash; I'll make him; it's the only way!"

Huston looked on curiously. He had been scrub on the football team when the Maestro had been captain and star; and the relation had left indelible marks upon him in an unreasoning, instinctive respect, a subtle sense of inferiority which no achievement in after-life would ever enable him to overcome. Now, however, this sense of fealty was being rudely put to proof. A horrible suspicion was setting his heart a-pound.

The shrinking appearance of Ledesma at the door