"So do I," said Maria Dolores, with heartiness.
"Well, at any rate, I am glad to see that he is not after you for your money," Frau Brandt reflected.
"I suppose we shall have to dress in sackcloth and dine on lentils," said Maria Dolores.
"Of course you will tell him to take his conditions to the Old One," said Frau Brandt. "It is out of the question for you to change the manner of your life."
"I feel indeed as if it were," admitted Maria Dolores. "But if he insists?"
"Then tell him to go to the Old One himself," was Frau Brandt's blunt advice.
Maria Dolores laughed. "It seems like an impasse," she said. "Who is to break the news to my brother?"
"We will wait until there is some news to break," the old woman amiably grumbled.
Again at the sunset hour Maria Dolores met him in the garden. He was seated on one of their marble benches, amongst marble columns, (rose-tinted by the western light, and casting long purple shadows), in a vine-embowered pergola. He was leaning forward, legs crossed, brow wrinkled, as one deep in thought. But of course at the sound of her footstep he jumped up.
"What mighty problem were you revolving?" she asked. "You looked like Rembrandt's philosophe en méditation."