Alice Duer Miller

“ It was thus that his own ego became involved in the question of Lopez' honor. He worried over it a good deal—all the more because he could not confide it to Margaret. It was not only that he would look like a fool in the eyes of the board, and give Wilkinson an opportunity to make himself disagreeable—possibly even to get back into the saddle—but Shelton's own judgment of himself was involved—a sane, conservative man like himself pensioning a forger. ”

“ He had no wish to frighten her, but he let her have it all.
“This is the man I came to Spain to find,” he said. “He is a notorious forger.” He told her the whole story.
Lopez was walking beside them, muttering and flinging his hands in the air, with all the fingers spread out.
“What could a man do?” he kept repeating. “Just as they would have taken the palace the draft arrived. What was my honor—one man's honor—a little crime against a big one—what could I do?”
“I think you were perfectly right,” said Margaret.
“Margaret!” exclaimed her husband. ”

“ Shelton glanced wistfully at him. How definitely he spoke of beauty! How right he had been about it! The man made him feel utterly blind.
Rosas preferred Margaret of the two; and addressing her, he launched into a description of the most beautiful sight in Granada—a little Moorish palace, privately owned, in the mountains, high up, above even the Generalife—a gem—the stone work—you would say lace—and the pools and the orange trees. It had been in the family of the Condesa Delasierras for centuries, and was now owned by the old condesa—the last. ”

“ She couldn't bear it, she said, that a man should beggar himself so nobly. He must permit her and her husband to take a part of the loan—all of it—they, too, would love and cherish the palace.
Lopez stopped her short, wagging his forefinger across his face with that gesture of negation which Shelton already knew.
“No, no, señora. You do not understand. I have given more than money; I have given my honor in order that I, a Delasierras, may live and die in the palace of the Delasierras. I cannot share it.”
“I understand exactly,” said Margaret. “You are right. You ought not to share it. ”

“ They stood on their narrow balcony and watched the shadows slide back from the plain, as if the rotation of the earth was suddenly made visible. The hotel was built on a steep hill, so that from their balcony on the third floor they looked straight down, as if from heaven, into the courts and gardens of the little houses below them. From these, strange animals began to emerge—strange for house pets, at least—a herd of goats from one, a pig from another. ”

“ Nombre de Dios, a tea house! The most perfect Moorish palace left in all Spain! And look”—he seemed to draw her aside confidentially, although it was all a gesture, for he did not move; nor did they need to, since the countess did not understand a word—“it is well known in Granada that I have the blood of Delasierras in my veins. I gave all I had to save the palace of my father, and now it will be mine.”
“But how do you live?” ”

“ Burke, too, knowing that the next few seconds would decide the event, leaned over and examined the small figure below him, as a cook looks at a boiling pot.
“It is a fair sum,” said Lopez.
The chairman and Burke exchanged a discouraged glance over the black head of the forger. Their thought was that this ready agreement was a bad sign. If he had meant to accept he would have tried to run them up. Obviously it was the exile from New York to which he objected. The chairman could understand that; he never left his native city without regret—never at all if he could help it. ”

“ Lopez sat down with a sudden bending of the knees, as he might have bowed to the altar in the cathedral of his native Granada. He dropped his hat on the floor and extracted a cigarette with some difficulty from under the gold-filigree band of Shelton's case.
Illustration: “I Believe the City Itself is Very Beautiful,” He Said—“the Snow Mountains Behind, You Know, and the Vega, as They Call it, in Front”
Burke rejected a cigarette and remained standing, with his arms folded and his soft hat dangling from the neighborhood of his shoulder blades—he had long arms. ”

“ Do I make myself clear? The first time one of these appeared, without any proof as to who did it, your income would stop.”
“You might attribute anybody's work to me,” said Lopez; “any clumsy forger——”
“Not a chance,” said Burke.
“No one's work is like yours,” said the chairman.
Lopez smiled a flattered smile. “I do not admit any work,” he answered. “What is the sum you offer?”
Shelton replied immediately, “Two hundred and fifty dollars a month.” ”

“ His skin did not seem dark until you saw his eyes, which were such a light gray that they startled you, almost as if the eye sockets had been without eyeballs. His eyebrows were fine and black and tremendously slanted in the opposite angle from the Chinese slant. The curve of his nostrils suggested the Moor. He was slender, active, alive. ”

“ The chairman reached for the top one.
“That check was originally drawn for ten dollars.”
Lopez took the check, handling it delicately with the tips of his long fine fingers. He bent his head over it. His hair grew in a point at the back of his neck. He held it up to the light and studied it with one eye, the smoke from his cigarette curling up into the other one. He spoke with a strong accent, rolling his r's.
“It is a very pretty piece of work,” he said.
“That's right—praise yourself,” observed Burke jovially.
“It is the work of an artist,” answered Shelton. ”

“ Shelton reported the interview at the next meeting of the board. Wilkinson, the former chairman, who disliked Shelton and all his policies, found a subject made to his hand.
“May I ask the chairman,” he said, “why if this fellow Lopez has been making twenty thousand a year out of us—those were the chairman's own figures, I think—he should be willing to stop doing it for such a paltry sum as three thousand. Why isn't he going to take this three thousand and all the rest too?”
“It's something to be safe from the law,” said Shelton. ”

“ He had great confidence in his wife's intuitions. But Margaret, for all her artistic perceptions, was rather rigid on moral questions. She would not have approved of this trafficking with evil; she would not think it right to pension a forger. It would remain one of a number of things he did not tell her.
The final arrangements took some time—how the money was to be paid through the Granada bank, the correspondent of Shelton's bank; how Lopez was to come for it personally, so that his presence could be reported monthly ”