She had even gone so far as to consider the propriety of investing him with a poor relationship to her family, when Dona Rosita herself happily stopped all further trouble.

On her very first introduction to him, that charming young lady at once accepted him as a lunatic whose brains were turned by occult, scientific, and medical study! Ah! she, Rosita, had heard of such cases before.

Had not a paternal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had discovered the elixir of youth.

Had he not to that end refused even to wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and the hair of the head! Exalted by that discovery, had he not been unsparingly uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex?
Even as the Senor Corwin! Far from being offended at this ingenious interpretation of his character, Ezekiel exhibited a dry gratification over it, and even conceived an unwholesome admiration of the fair critic; he haunted her presence and preoccupied her society far beyond Joan's most sanguine expectations.

He sat in open-mouthed enjoyment of her at the table, he waylaid her in the garden, he attempted to teach her English.