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In an instant she had her hands on a number of bills of different denominations, forming a roll which she squeezed tight between her fingers. Renovales protested. "Let me have it, Milita, don't be childish. You're leaving me without a cent. I'll send it to you to-morrow; give it up now. It's robbery."
For the other people, she had not passed through the world; not even his daughter felt any lasting sorrow at her death. Milita turned her back to the portrait. She forgot her mother and her father's work. An artist's hobby! She had come for something else. She sat down beside him, almost in the same way that another woman had sat down, a few hours before.
However disagreeable the path was, it would lead to the realization of his desire. Many evenings Renovales went to the Opera, in obedience to Concha, who wanted to see him, and spent whole acts in the back of her box, conversing with her. Milita laughed at this change in the habits of her father, who used to go to bed early, so as to be able to work early in the morning.
Fortunately Cotoner was at the house and mamma had made him stay, so that they would not have to lunch alone. Their old friend had gone to the kitchen and prepared one of those dishes he had learned to make in the days when he was a landscape-painter. Milita observed that all landscape-painters knew something about cooking.
And in vain did Soldevilla put on his brightest ties and show off shocking waistcoats; his rival crushed him and, what was worse, the master's wife, who formerly used to have a sort of motherly concern for him and called him by his first name, for she had known him as a boy, now received him coldly, as if she wished to discourage his suit for Milita.
He felt that he must purify himself by some noble, generous sacrifice from this blindness of soul that now was terrifying. Milita no longer spent the nights caring for her mother and would go home, somewhat to the discomfiture of her husband, who had been rather pleased at this unexpected return to a bachelor's life. Renovales did not sleep.
They saw her in an armchair, shrunken, wilted, in the deathly abandon that converts the body into a limp mass. All was over. Milita had to catch her father, to hold him up. She had to be the one who kept her calmness and energy at the critical moment.
He had conquered, but he left behind him the woman he loved, fallen in the struggle because she was the weaker. He admired, too, her maternal self-sacrifice. The baby, Milita, who attracted attention because of her whiteness and ruddiness, had the strength that her mother lacked. The greediness of this strong, enslaving creature had absorbed all of the mother's life.
Besides he was out of place in things that did not belong to his time; he was getting old and these frightful novelties did not agree with him. "Good-by, papa." Milita, lifting her veil, put out her red, tempting lips, showing her bright teeth as she smiled.
The poor master did not see the hasty glance at the other portraits which had guided the girl in her induction. "Do you like it? Is it she?" he asked as anxiously as a novice. Milita answered rather vaguely. Yes, it was good; perhaps a little more beautiful than she was. She never knew her like that. "That is true," said the master, "You never saw her in her good days.
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