Of course, the indulgence of this vanity meant expense, since the fair require money and presents, and he who pursues them should be well dressed and horsed and able to do things in the very finest style.

Also their relatives must be entertained, and when they were entertained impressed with the sense that they had the honour to be guests of a grandee of Spain.
Now that of a grandee has never been a cheap profession; indeed, as many a pauper peer knows to-day, rank without resources is a terrific burden.
Montalvo had the rank, for he was a well-born man, whose sole heritage was an ancient tower built by some warlike ancestor in a position admirably suited to the purpose of the said ancestor, namely, the pillage of travellers through a neighbouring mountain pass.

When, however, travellers ceased to use that pass, or for other reasons robbery became no longer productive, the revenues of the Montalvo family declined till at the present date they were practically nil.

Thus it came about that the status of the last representative of this ancient stock was that of a soldier of fortune of the common type, endowed, unfortunately for himself, with grand ideas, a gambler's fatal fire, expensive tastes, and more than the usual pride of race.
Although, perhaps, he had never defined them very clearly, even to himself, Juan de Montalvo had two aims in life: first to indulge his every freak and fancy to the full, and next--but this was secondary and somewhat nebulous--to re-establish the fortunes of his family.

In themselves they were quite legitimate aims, and in those times, when fishers of troubled waters generally caught something, and when men of ability and character might force their way to splendid positions, there was no reason why they should not have led him to success.