"Pedro came home a few hours later.
"'Pedro, what did the doctor say?'
"'He said I must see him at least three times a week—on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays—all the time we shall be here.'
"Then they went down to the restaurant to dine. He was very gay, very well disposed when they returned to their apartments. They sat down to drink Spanish lemonade which only she knew how to prepare exactly to his taste.
"There was only one cry—the rest was only guttural noise. A few drops in the drink and his vocal chords were destroyed forever—he never sang again to another woman's accompaniments."
"And the woman, Madame Ibanez? What happened to the woman?"
"She kept her vow. She never played accompaniments to another man's singing. She opened a restaurant, Don Pablo; her man became the cook. And now a poet thinks he loves their daughter."
Like silver crystals detaching themselves from onyx flames, two tears rolled down the parched cheeks of the woman.
"Pablo Cortez must know how the Ibanezes take love, and think twice before he dedicates his poems."