He had adjusted himself serenely to his surroundings
when Rosa Varona returned from school, but with her coming, away
went all his complacency. His contentment vanished; he experienced
a total change in his opinions, his hopes, and his ambitions.
He discovered, for example, that Matanzas was by no means the out-
of-the-way place he had considered it; on the contrary, after
meeting Rosa once by accident, twice by design, and three times by
mutual arrangement, it had dawned upon him that this was the chief
city of Cuba, if not, perhaps, the hub around which the whole
world revolved; certainly it was the most agreeable of all cities,
since it contained everything that was necessary for man's
happiness. Yet, despite the thrill of his awakening, O'Reilly was
not at all pleased with himself, for, as it happened, there was
another girl back home, and during his first year of loneliness he
had written to her more freely and more frequently than any man on
such a salary as his had a right to do.
O'Reilly laid no claims to literary gifts; nevertheless, it seemed
to him, as he looked back upon it, that his pen must have been
dipped in magic and in moonlight, for the girl had expressed an
eager willingness to share his interesting economic problems, and
in fact was waiting for him to give her the legal right.
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