"Stop there! Say no more. You go your own way."
"A woman without a father," continued Juan as he sauntered along, leaving Lucio to ponder on his last words.
Lucio was left in such a pensive way. He gathered up his courage and tried to realize what he had been after, and then went home. Ah! the music he loved to sing he seemed to forget, and the promise he made his father he seemed not to mind.
"What am I after all? This old bird Juan knows better than I do. But if there is any truth in what he says, let me know it later... For the present, it is safe.. He is only fond of making a humor on life. He is not serious. O, Juan is only such a talkative fellow. He loves gossip, that is all. Since there is no harm, as he says, I see nothing to fear and no obstacle to encounter, except my own conscience; and since my conscience. and my heart are silent-I am on the right plane-and. I'll just go on and see and then discover all. If a man dares not-how can he leam-if he does not see the world as it is with all its coldness and its pleasures-how could he ever learn? For we grow wise as we are taught by examples by mother experience in her
most cruel moods, when she speaks in her universal.
language. Bah, what does Juan, I wonder, know about her?"
