And the baron, with his strange gestures, and rough, loud voice, became a very ogre to the poor little innocent things. He constantly went about armed with a pair of pistols; and the handle of his stick was a veritable club. It was said that he once made an end of a servant merely for having opened a letter, and that on several occasions he seized hold of children who dared to make faces at him in the street, put them in the stable, undressed them, and thrashed them soundly with the bridle of his horse. True, or invented, these stories were calculated to make the infant minds of Lancia regard him as a monster of ferocity from whom they fled as fast as their trembling legs would carry them.
One of the things which inspired the terror of the little ones, and caused respect not devoid of fear in the grown-up people, was the horse that the baron had. It was a creature with a fiery eye, and so fierce that nobody but he and his friend Fray Diego, who had served in the cavalry, dared to mount him. He had to be most cleverly managed when taken to drink, and even then the ungovernable brute reared and kicked to the alarm of all the passers-by. When the baron mounted and left his house, striking about him, and laying into the horse with his whip, the neighbours rushed to their windows, the children took refuge in the bosoms of their mothers, and everybody gazed in terror at the fearful centaur. Certainly the Baron de los Oscos presented at such times a formidable aspect, with his scarred face, bloodshot eyes, waxed, fierce-looking moustache, and his figure looking like part of the horse.
One's imagination had to go back to the invasions of the barbarians to find anything equal to it. Neither Alaric, Attila, nor Odoacer could have looked more strange and sinister, nor could they have inspired more terror than he. Judge, then, of the effect upon the timid neighbours when one day he took it into his head to parade the streets of the town at midnight, accompanied by a servant, a man very like him, on another charger.
The Countess of Onis was as strange in her way as her brother. She was short and stout, with a pale, round face, dull black eyes, hair plastered down with quince-juice gum, and constantly dressed in the mournful garb of a nun. She lived as secluded in her place, as a nun in a convent. She was absolutely absorbed in devotion, but it was a capricious, fantastic devotion, in no way similar to that practised by really mystic souls. All her life she had shown a tendency to eccentricity, but after the count's death it became so marked, that her strange ways assumed the form of rather serious manias. When she was young, her modesty was so extreme that it became ridiculous. The ears of the Señorita de los Oscos were so chaste that the conversation of an English "Miss" would seem like a serjeant's in her presence. She could not tolerate her brother's under-linen being put with hers when the laundress took it away or brought it home. If she was asked to sew a button on his underclothes, she ran to her room when the task was over, and washed her hands, when, it was said, she sprinkled them with holy water. She compressed her figure to a hurtful extent, and the height of the collar of her dresses was contrary to the regulations of fashion; her under-garments were only changed in the dark, and she never shook hands with a man unless she had gloves on. The history of her marriage was truly curious, full of funny incidents which were for a long time the talk of the town, and the account of the first night of her marriage, whether true or false, was worthy of figuring in a novel of Paul de Kock. One need hardly say that during her marriage this virtue of chastity became somewhat modified. But as soon as she became a widow, she resorted to her eccentric ways to a remarkable degree, and in her latter years they assumed the aspect of madness. When she told her beads, which was twice a day, she sent a servant to the poultry-yard to separate the cock from the hens; then the forks had to be separated from the spoons, and the hooks from the eyes. One day the coachman came to tell her that one of the mares had foaled, and she was so angry that, after having sharply rebuked him for his audacity in acquainting her with such a fact, she gave orders for having it sold. One day she came upon a lad giving a kiss to the cook, and she became ill with disgust, and both parties were immediately dismissed from the house.
She liked to have a party at an early hour in the evening, when she only invited clerics. On these occasions she used to sit in an armchair where, intentionally or unintentionally, probably intentionally, there were put two cushions so that she seemed to be in a valley. Soon after the arrival of the company, when the conversation became animated, she would fall into a deep sleep, and thus remain until nine o'clock, when the cassocked gentlemen retired, presumably, without shaking hands. As there was a chapel in the house she seldom went out, and when she did so, it was in the carriage. She kept all the money that came to her hands hidden away in secret places in the garret or the garden. Sometimes this avarice or, as it may be more correctly termed, this mania for hoarding, brought them into difficulties, and she preferred to let her son borrow money to disinterring her treasure. She was very greedy, and fond of dainties; and she could consume a quantity of sweets with no signs of indigestion. But such things were not made for nuns, and so, in strange contradiction to her pious inclinations, she hated all that savoured of the convent.
And it was by this eccentric, one may almost say mad, woman, that the present Count of Onis was brought up, and his character was much affected thereby. To counteract his excessive sensitiveness, his weak and vacillating temperament, and his imaginative and gloomy disposition, of which sad signs were shown at times, he ought to have been brought up in the open air under an intelligent and energetic master, who would have known how to inspire him with manly strength and resolution. But, unfortunately, it was just the contrary. The countess would not hear of any career which would take him away from Lancia; so he went to the local university, where he followed a course of jurisprudence, after which rich young men think they are entitled to pass the rest of their days in idleness. During his college career the countess kept him under her authority in a way that became ridiculous. He never left the house without permission, he came in at dark, he told his beads, and went to confession when she bade him to. Whilst his body developed to a marvellous degree, so that he became a fine athletic young fellow, his mind remained as submissive and childish as that of a ten-year-old child.
His retired effeminate life increased the natural timidity of his character, his sensitiveness became weakness, and his gloomy nature secretive. And the most lamentable thing was, that without being a shining light, he was gifted with clear intelligence, and possessed a penetration frequently found in reserved and timid men. He was wanting in self-confidence and experience; but he showed a great deal of tact in conversation; shortcomings of his neighbour never escaped him and, as with most weak characters, he took a mischievous delight in drawing attention to them. It is the revenge taken by characterless people upon those who have a vigorous and spontaneous one. Nevertheless, these outbursts of irony and malignity were not very frequent. He generally appeared a prudent, reserved, melancholy young man, with courteous gentlemanly manners, a feeling heart, and full of affection and respect for his mother. After his college career was over, his inclination and plans were in favour of leaving Lancia, going to court, and travelling for some time. But the countess's disapproval was enough to make him give up the idea and remain at home. So he spent his days in idleness without feeling in anyway obliged ever to glance from time to time into his books of jurisprudence. He amused himself occasionally with certain manual occupations, and in reading the works of romance much in vogue at the time. He became a clever carpenter, but not so clever as his father; and then he took up watch-making. Finally, he developed an interest in a little property in the suburbs of the town, and set about making great improvements there. It was called the Grange, and it was situated a little more than a mile from Lancia. It was a large old rambling house, with a beautiful wood of oak trees behind, and fertile meadows in front. The count took to going there every afternoon after dinner; he bred black cattle, and horses as well; he planted trees, cut canals, and raised banks. The house he hardly touched. He gained physically by this new interest, which made him more active and hardy, and his character improved at the same time. The melancholy which had been so distressing to him decreased, and he became more cheerful, his self-confidence increased, as he had more intercourse with people, whilst the fits of anger, rage and despair which used to come over him without any cause, making him seem like an epileptic to the servants, grew rarer and rarer until they left him altogether. He thus reached his twenty-eighth year when he began to frequent the house of the Quiñones, and it was then that his life underwent a complete change.
It was nine o'clock in the morning when his servant woke him from an exciting unfinished dream to give him a letter. With feigned indifference he dropped it on the night-table, but scarcely had the servant left the room when he seized it, and opened it with visible agitation.
Although his connection with Amalia was of about two years' standing, he never opened a letter from her without his hands trembling. They certainly did not often write to each other; and it was probably the rarity of the occurrence which accounted for its affecting him so much, as in truth a deep love for her had taken root in his timid, sensitive nature.
"This afternoon. By the pulpit," was all that the note conveyed, but his mind was much agitated by the communication. Such appointments were extremely dangerous. In the midst of his happiness they overpowered him with a feeling of dread he could not overcome. He had begged Amalia to give them up, but she paid no heed to his wishes, and he was perfectly incapable of opposing her will. All the morning he was nervous and upset. He took a ride to calm his nerves, and went as far as the Grange, only to return as unsettled as when he left.
At the hour named he left home and went to the Calle de Cerrajerías. It was the time of day when scarcely anybody is about. It was three o'clock, and so people were either at table or resting. At the end of Cerrajerías, at the corner of Santa Lucia, is the church of San Rafael, and the principal entrance is on that side. The count entered the building, after taking holy water, like one about to say his prayers. He was quite alone, or at least he seemed so at first sight. In a few minutes his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, and he saw two or three kneeling figures scattered about. He knelt down in the dark near the little door of the staircase leading to the pew of the Quiñones, and pretended to pray for a few moments. This was very repugnant to him. He was a sincere believer, and his strictly pious education made him have a horror of such sacrilege. The fanaticism of his mother had left its mark upon him, and he had a fearful dread of hell. Amalia was also a believer, and she had a reputation for piety in the place: she belonged to several confraternities, she was patron of several asylums, she frequently made presents to the images, and she was generally seen with the clergy; but this profanation she regarded with the greatest indifference. Religion was for her a thing of respectability, but her own pleasures and wishes seemed the thing to be most respected. After a few minutes the count cautiously rose, and pushed the little door, which had been purposely left open, then he went in and mounted the narrow winding staircase. The little pew of the Quiñones was even darker than the Church. He felt for the door of the passage and opened it, but as it had glass windows looking on to the street, he crossed it like a cat. At the door communicating with the house, Jacoba was waiting for him. She was a woman of more than fifty years of age, of portly form and demeanour. She moved with difficulty, for her breath was short, from her extreme fatness, and she always spoke in a falsetto voice. She was discretion itself, a sealed book. The count and Amalia had never had any other confidante. Nobody else in the world was acquainted with their love affair, and she had served them wonderfully through its course. Acting as sentinel, she had often saved them from discovery, for she had constituted herself their guardian angel. She was not a servant in the house, but the señora was one of her patrons. Her occupation was to run errands to the shops for different houses, and the perquisites made on the purchases formed the staple of her livelihood. This was not, however, sufficient for her maintenance, but she was alone and a spinster, and in many houses presents were made her, and she was helped in a hundred ways. The Señora de Quiñones was her especial patroness, and when she became her confidante, it was like coming upon a mine of wealth, for Amalia paid lavishly for services which certainly deserved great compensation.
The go-between put her finger on her lips as a sign of silence directly the count entered the door, but as he was already holding his breath to avoid making a noise, this warning was quite unnecessary. Then going a little way first, to see how the ground lay, she made him a sign to follow her. They crossed a corridor, passed by the principal staircase without going up it for fear of meeting some servant, and went into the library where there was a little staircase that led thence to the second floor. The count proceeded on tiptoe with a beating heart. Although this was not the first time he had been like this to the Quiñones' house, it always seemed to him the height of temerity, and he inwardly cursed his lover's boldness and disregard of consequences.
At last they came to the señora's room. The door opened without any one being seen, Jacoba gave the count a gentle push, and remained herself outside.
Amalia withdrew her hand, which she had mechanically held out, and with a sudden impulsive gesture, she threw her arms round the neck of her beloved and kissed him with tenderness. The grave man, being still upset by the manner of his arrival, remained quiescent, and did not reciprocate these demonstrations of affection. The lady then gave him a maternal tap on the cheek.
"Calm yourself, coward, nobody will eat you here."
Luis made an effort to smile and sank into a French chair upholstered with bright blue.
Amalia's room with its luxurious furniture was a contrast to the neglect that reigned in the rest of the house. The walls were covered with rich tapestry, the best of the collection in the possession of the family; the bright furniture, of Louis XV. style, was brought from Madrid, with the magnificent ebony bedstead inlaid with marble in the alcove, when Don Pedro was making futile efforts to win the heart of his wife. There was a perfumed sensual atmosphere about the place, showing the refined tastes that the foreign lady had brought from other lands to the severe mansion of the Quiñones. She seated herself on the count's knee, and pulling his beard, she exclaimed with a joy that could scarcely be restrained and emanated from her whole person:
"See now, see how we have conquered. See how we have got over all those difficulties which came into your head and prevented your seeing clearly. Only a little audacity was necessary for God to help us."
"God!" said the count, with a shudder.
She felt she had been wrong in referring to the Divinity, and she hastened to say with unconcern:
"Well, then, fate, if you like. Come, don't make yourself wretched and sad. This is a moment of happiness for us. She is really here, and it seems too good to be true. My daughter, the daughter of my love living with me; being able to see her and kiss her at all hours! How beautiful she is! I could not look at her comfortably until this morning, but to-day I did so to my heart's content. She is like you—particularly about the forehead between the eyebrows. Jacoba says that the mouth is mine. I am not sorry, for it might have taken after me in something worse, is it not so?" she added, with a coquettish smile.
"I think you are beautiful all round."
"That is right!" exclaimed the lady with an affectionate look. "You have at last recovered the power of speech. Well, then," she added in a serious tone, "you do not know the trouble we had this morning to find a nurse. Three were brought to me, and neither of them suited. At last I settled on the fourth. And how beautifully my angel took to her food. I could hardly help jumping for joy, and I can hardly help it now. But I must be grave and solemn, like the señor count. Tell me, how did you manage to get her here? Tell me about it. How your face looked when the drawing-room door opened last night!"
"The thing was not easy. At nine o'clock I went to fetch her from Jacoba's house. But she will have told you about it. I had to spend two hours there, for the devil seemed in the business, and the child screamed incessantly."
"Yes, yes; I know all that. And then?"
"What a night it was! The gusts of wind were incessant, especially in those out-of-the-way suburbs. I turned up my trousers to the knee, for how could I come into your drawing-room covered with mud? I wanted to carry the basket on one arm, and the open umbrella in the other hand, but it was impossible. After a few steps, I came back and left the umbrella with Jacoba. What a walk! Holy heaven, what a business! The wind kept blowing down the collar of my coat, the rain dashed in my face and down my neck. I was frightened the baby would get wet. I went along fearing to breathe. Supposing I had slipped just then! The wind blew at times so strongly that I could hardly get along. You can easily believe that I was tempted to go back and leave it for another day."
"I can easily believe it. I know that a plate of water would be enough to drown you."
He gave her a sad, reproachful look, and then Amalia began to laugh, and embracing and kissing him effusively, she exclaimed:
"Don't be cross, poor little dear! Do not think I do not feel for you. The journey was very difficult. You bore it like a hero."
The count coloured at these praises. His conscience told him he did not deserve them; and he recollected the terrible ordeal that Amalia had herself passed through, and said:
"But you! What you must have suffered on your side! How are you? It was imprudent to go downstairs so soon."
"Oh! I am as strong as a horse, although I appear weak."
"So you seem to be. To suffer what you did without uttering a sound!"
"Pray, what can you know about it, stupid?" she said, putting a hand on his mouth.
"Then only four days in bed," continued the young man, gently taking her hand from his mouth and kissing it at the same time; "and on the fifth to go down to the drawing-room."
"But, then, nothing was supposed to have happened, and if I had not gone down yesterday, Quiñones would certainly have sent for the doctor! On the second day he was worrying for me to go down. But what do you think? He is in love with the baby—quite mad about it! All the morning he has had the nurse in his room. And he has such strange ideas. He says, 'God has sent us this child to console us for having no family.'"
Then the count relapsed into sadness and gloom, whilst a smile of cruel irony played on the lips of the lady.
"And all this time you have never asked for her, you unnatural father!" she said, as she passed her delicate white fingers through her lover's thick, curly, reddish beard. "For you are her father—yes, her father. That you can't deny," she added, fondly putting her face against his so that her lips were close to his ear. "I will go and fetch her."
"But will the nurse come, too?" he asked in terror.
"No, man, no!" she answered, laughing; "she will come alone. You will see that can easily be managed."
The count opened his eyes with an expression that made her laugh more. She got up and, opening the door, she whispered a second with Jacoba who was stationed as sentinel outside. In a few minutes the stout go-between re-opened the door and brought in the sleeping child. Amalia sat down, and told her to put it on her lap. And then, for a long time, they both gazed in ecstasy at the little delicate creature as it softly breathed in its sleep. It was a moment of happiness. The count forgot his fears and became quite calm, whilst a smile of real pleasure illuminated his gentle, melancholy features. The minutes passed, and neither cared to break the blissful silence, nor disturb the intense absorption in which their minds were one. That tiny, unconscious being, that atom of rosy flesh riveted their gaze equally, and bound their souls and lives to her with invisible threads.
"How beautiful she is! She is like you," murmured the count so softly that the words hardly reached the ears of his lover.
"She is more like you," she returned in the same subdued voice.
And by a simultaneous movement, they both turned and looked at each other with a long intense look of love.
"I adore you, Amalia," he said.
"I love you, Luis," she replied.
Their hands met and pressed affectionately, and their heads were bent in the interchange of a chaste kiss.
CHAPTER IV
THE HISTORY OF THEIR LOVE
Chaste, yes, and perhaps it was the first kiss that had been so in that long love affair. All that was tender and poetic in their affection seemed to rise like a perfume, and transport them with raptures of delight. The remorse that had hitherto weighed so heavily on the sensitive soul of the count was gone. The mad agitation that had tormented them both, the ardour, violence and bitterness which, like the hidden worm in the bud of a rose, had poisoned their wicked love passages, had passed away. Nothing remained but pure love—love satisfied, love consecrated by the holy mysterious force of nature's mysteries.
If only they had met earlier! How often has this been said by people in similar circumstances! And if they had met earlier, they would probably have parted without the slightest feeling of attraction.
Love flourishes on difficulties and takes root on shifting sand, in fact they seem to be the most propitious circumstances for its cultivation.
The report in Lancia was true about Amalia having been forced into a marriage with Don Pedro by her family who were in great straits. Don Antonio Sanchiz, the lady's father, was a Valencian gentleman of means, but gambling and dissipation swallowed up three-fourths of his property. His eldest son, who had the same tastes, spent the remaining fourth by the same means. Amalia was the youngest of the family, which consisted of four girls and one boy. Her eldest sister, who had come in for a little of the decaying splendour of the house, managed to marry a rich banker. Nobody approved of the connection, especially as neither Don Antonio nor his son Antonito managed to see the colour of the money of their respective son, and brother-in-law. The other two married men of good family but without money. Amalia grew up in the midst of the total ruin of her house. Neither her elegant figure nor her high birth brought her admirers. The well-known misfortunes of the house, and her father and brother's bad reputation, constituted an unsurmountable barrier around her. Her feelings were often touched by those who only paid her attention out of idleness, or love of flirtation. She was certainly not a typical beauty: she was wanting in gracefulness of figure, plumpness of form, and brightness of complexion. But in spite of her slight, and not at all well formed figure, and the constant pallor of her cheeks, there was something attractive about her, which grew upon one the more you saw of her. Perhaps this charm lay in her large expressive dark eyes, which reflected every emotion: now they shone with a fire that breathed a deep and passionate nature, now they looked quiet, ecstatic and limpid in a sort of mystic rapture, now they were merry and mischievous, now they were dreamy and melancholy, now tender and tearful, now sparkling with fun or shining with anger. Perhaps her charm lay in her versatility, in the keenness of her intellect, in her sympathetic and insinuating voice. She was, in short, an interesting, charming woman. I do not know whether it was owing to her pride or her naturally tempestuous mind, but scorning the young men of her own rank, who courted her without resolving to ask for her hand, she lost her heart to a modest young man, a poor government clerk with an income of forty thousand reales,[I] son of a schoolmaster. The blue blood of the Sanchiz in the veins of Antonio, Antonito, her sisters, and the banker, her brother-in-law, in whom it was conspicuous by its absence, boiled in indignation.
She was the victim of active, fierce persecution. But as she was not wanting in spirit, and was moreover possessed of a mind fertile in resources, she certainly managed to defy the family for some time; their entreaties and threats were of no avail and her time of enforced retreat in a convent was equally ineffectual. If the clerk had not happened to die of phthisis, which killed him in a few months, it is almost certain that the very noble and straitened house of the Sanchiz would have had to see itself allied to the son of a schoolmaster.
After this adventure Amalia lost caste in the place. But she well knew that if she had retained her prestige, it would have been the same. Men do not marry for prestige, but for money. It never occurred to her to feel remorse for the past. She lived sad and resigned for two years, showing an utter indifference to the pleasures belonging to her position, and without making any effort to gain the good graces of the young men so as to get a husband. It was when she was about twenty-four years old and she had given up all thought of matrimony, that Don Pedro Quiñones, her third or fourth cousin, began to think about her. She rebelled against marrying this gentleman, whom she had only seen two or three times as a child, and who had been a widower for a short time, and whose eccentricities she had heard her father and brother relate with fits of laughter, and now they were the very ones to press her acceptance of him as a husband! She was not very firm in her resistance. She was so disillusioned, she lived in such a state of deep dejection and apathy, that as soon as her father became angry about the matter and pressed her to accede to his entreaties he extorted a consent. They all said that the marriage would be the salvation of the family. She did not trouble to find out if that were the truth or not. After she was married, she found that all that they could get out of Don Pedro was a little allowance, which gave them hardly enough for food.
So the noble descendant of the Quiñones of Leon was hopelessly in love with a statue. On the journey that they made from Valencia to Lancia the bride was so cold and circumspect, but at the same time polite, that Don Pedro was kept at the same distance as at the beginning of his suit. In Lancia we know what the public version of the story was. The persistent coldness and the infinite contempt with which she treated him for some time, far from repelling him, only increased his passion. Quiñones was, as we know, of a strong, tenacious, indomitable will. The obstacles which at first merely irritated him, finally enraged him. He wanted to conquer the heart of his wife, and he spared no means in the attempt: he overwhelmed her with attentions, he gratified her slightest wishes, and lived for several months in perpetual anxiety, in a perfect fever of alternate hope and despair. He would, however, never have attained his end without the astuteness of his friend the canon, who advised him to take a journey in the mountains, which, rife with frights and dangers, drew them together in closer intimacy. During the first two years of her marriage Amalia led a retired life, without ever hardly leaving the gloomy old palace of the Calle de Santa Lucia. She lived alone in her depression, and made her life more sad than it need have been, by nursing a dumb rebellion against a fate that threatened to drive her insane. To all outward appearance she was resigned, treating those that were about her with studied courtesy. The dreadful illness which happened to her husband distracted her a little, and a sentiment of pity touched her heart. For some time she thought she was destined for the vocation of a nursing sister, and she tried with assumed affection to make his life more bearable to him. By degrees she grew to like the little gatherings of friends round her husband, and she began to interest herself and take part in the local political conversations.
Don Pedro was the arbiter of the province whilst the Moderate party was in power. Now that it was out, he still retained great prestige and influence, from people not knowing how long it would be before it was in again. It was to augment this prestige and this influence, and to add to the dignity of the house, that Amalia opened her drawing-rooms to the Lancian society that she had hitherto kept at a distance, doing nothing but pay a few complimentary visits. She now gave concerts, organised sociable gatherings, and had large state balls, by means of which she regained her lost energy, and the gracious and sympathetic versatility which had characterised her; the light returned to her eyes and the smile to her lips. Nobody could better do the honours of her entertainments. She was a model of gentleness and courtesy, and she made herself adored by the young people of the place to whom she afforded the means of killing interminable winter evenings.
Fernanda Estrada-Rosa was one of the most beautiful ornaments of her concerts and parties. The Count of Onis, her admirer, came in her train. The count had long been on visiting terms at the house of Quiñones, but until lately he only went occasionally in the evening for a formal visit, or at the new year, &c. Notwithstanding, he had a profound sympathy for Quiñones. It was enough for him to belong to the nobility, for the young noble to consider him superior in all respects to everybody else in the place. Amalia, who hardly knew him, began to observe him with much curiosity. She had heard so much said about his affection and respect for his mother, his melancholy temperament, his habits and his exaggerated piety, that she wished to cultivate his acquaintance, she wanted to gauge the depths of the soul of such a superior and high-minded young man. She was not long in seeing that he was not yet in love. Noting his attention to Fernanda with interest, she perceived a coldness on his side which was certainly not on that of the rich heiress. She knew that the count was deceiving himself, making efforts to fall in love, or at any rate, to seem so. He seemed to look upon love as an obligation pertaining to his age and position. The chief young man in Lancia ought to love the richest, most beautiful girl of Lancia. Besides, it seemed as if he also wanted to show the place that he was neither eccentric nor a maniac, as he had heard that he was reported to be. He therefore went in for being a recognised lover; he spent a couple of hours in the morning in the Calle de Altavilla, where his young lady lived, he sat at her side at the parties of the Señoritas de Meré or de Quiñones, and he danced with her at the balls of the Casino. But at the same time Amalia did not fail to see, with considerable interest, that his conversation was cold, and that the count was often silent and distrait until she took part in the conversation and made it more lively.
The love affair interested her more and more, she courted the girl's confidence as well as his. It was not long before her ardent, sagacious, strong-willed soul sympathised with that of Luis, which was so timid, childlike, pitiful, and affectionate. More proficient in the art of love-making than the Estrada-Rosa girl, she soon won the count's confidence and affection and she drew from him a number of confidences, not only about his feelings, but the whole of his life. No clever Jesuit could have made a better confessor. Luis, delighted at such a show of interest, completely opened his heart to her, at first telling her his habits, then relating things of his past life, and finally confiding secret feelings which are only told to a brother. But Amalia expressed no surprise at such original and morbid thoughts; she gave her opinion on them, and told him affectionately that he might confide in her and count upon her counsel in difficult matters of life, of which complicated mechanism the count was totally ignorant. This clever game advanced her scheme, and he confided in her more and more, happy in the opportunity of unbosoming sentimental ideas, and confessing the strange unhappy timidity to which he was a victim.
Amalia knew how to avoid arousing Fernanda's jealousy by posing as the confidante and protectress of her love. If she had long and interesting conversations with the count, she had equally long and interesting ones with her. She would have great pleasure in giving them assistance in the form of finding them opportunities of seeing and talking to each other, and when they understood each other, &c. &c. But, without the innocent girl suspecting it, without even the count realising it, the Valencian lady rapidly gained the affections of Luis. If in youth, beauty, and elegance, she was inferior to the rich heiress, she was much superior in expressive grace of countenance, power of conversation, and fine intelligence. The count soon came to telling her what was the true state of his heart with regard to Fernanda. The astute Señora knew how to turn such confidences to her own advantage by making him see that what he felt was only admiration for the beautiful works of nature, a vain desire to make himself beloved by the prettiest and richest girl in the town, the necessity of distraction from depression—anything, in short, but real love. That was shown in great sadness, ineffable joy, sleepless nights, anxiety, and agitation, both sweet and bitter, by which the breast is constantly consumed.
Luis was soon won over to her opinion. Then she added that his coldness was unjustifiable; she did not understand how a man of such good taste had not fallen hopelessly in love ere this. She joked him, she laughed at him, and she praised the qualities of the gentle heiress up to the clouds.
But whilst she said this with her lips, her eyes belied her words: the black pupils, so full of fire and intelligence, were fixed on him with an expression somewhat languid, somewhat malicious, which ended by fascinating him. At the same time her small, delicate, aristocratic hands took hold of his on every occasion; and on parting she pressed them with nervous tenacity. If sometimes, in bending to look at anything, their heads touched, Amalia did not move hers, and the count was not loth to inhale the subtle perfume which entered his veins like poison. She took a great interest in his clothes, and told him what she liked: he was not to wear a frock-coat, the blue jacket suited him admirably. Why did he like dark gloves?
"I forbid you," she said, laughing, "to wear them any more."
She professed a great taste for cravats, and she told him that those in a bow suited him better than those in a knot.
"Why do you not get your hats from Madrid?" she asked. "Those that you get in Lancia are so old-fashioned and ridiculous."
And the count was pleased to follow her suggestions, and gradually let himself be ruled by the woman who was so weak in body and so strong in will.
One night on arriving at the Quiñones' house before anybody else, the lady said to him sharply:
"Who gave you that button-hole? Fernanda?"
The count smiled and coloured, as he gave a sign in the affirmative.
"Then you must excuse my saying it is a very ugly colour. Look here, I will give you a prettier one."
So saying, she went straight to a flower-stand in the room, and took out a magnificent pink clove. She then turned to where the count was standing, and with great boldness, although with a certain affectation of one who is showing her power, she took away the flower he was wearing, and replaced it by the fresh one. He suffered this substitution in silence, upset and surprised. She, feigning not to notice his surprise, took a step back, and said with interest:
"Yes, I think that is better!"
Then ensued a few minutes of embarrassed silence. She then began to play with Fernanda's clove, pulling the petals, whilst darting frequent glances at the count, who stood confused, not knowing what to say, nor where to look. At last their eyes met with a smile. There was a spark of malice in hers, and in the sudden scornful gesture with which she threw the flower she held in her hand under a chair.
The count instantly became serious, and his cheeks coloured. At that moment Manuel Antonio came in.
The count could not regain his equanimity.
When Fernanda arrived, and, with visible displeasure, asked him for her clove, he was in a very awkward position. The gardener's little boy was said to have pulled it from him when he stooped to kiss him, and so he had taken another from his mother's room. But Amalia, who was implacable, made matters worse by saying in a loud voice with a malicious smile:
"Who gave you that beautiful clove? Fernanda?"
"No, no," he hastily replied.
And then the count, quite red and upset, had to proceed to give in a loud voice the explanation he had been giving in an undertone to Fernanda. That little act of treason was a bond between them; it established a peculiar relation which the count did not dare to define in his thoughts, for he trembled as though an abyss yawned at his feet. He continued paying attention to the heiress of Estrada-Rosa with the same, if not more, assiduity, but he could never talk with the Señora of Quiñones without feeling agitated; her glances were long and earnest, the pressure of her hand was full of affection, and yet they both acted before Fernanda as if she were already his affianced wife. And yet they had not uttered a word of love! But Luis knew he was not treating the lady he was courting fairly, and that he was acting criminally with regard to Don Pedro, his friend. He did not know how, or why, but his conscience told him that he was. Sometimes he tried to persuade himself that he had not taken one step in the direction of crime, that he was involved in a train of circumstances in which love, intelligence, treason, all played a part without one's knowing how it had happened.
More than a month passed by in this way. Amalia not only discoursed to him of love with her eyes, but she made him carry out all her most capricious fancies whilst sometimes sharply calling him to task.
If, for example, he caught a glance from Amalia when he was going for a walk telling him to stay, he would stay. If he was about to dance with Fernanda, a severe look would prevent him doing so.
One day he announced his intention of going for six or eight days to his property in Onis; but Amalia made a negative sign with her head, and he gave up the idea. What right had she thus to cross his wishes and direct his line of conduct? He did not know, but he felt very pleased to obey her. He lived in a state of pleasant, exciting unrest, sometimes hoping for something so ineffably delightful, that he hardly dared to formulate it even to himself.
In the meanwhile she quietly watched him with her sphinx-like smile, strong in the conviction that the something would happen when the time was ripe.
One afternoon in June the count was at The Grange inspecting the operations of some workmen he was employing in opening a wider aqueduct for the mill, when the boy who minded the cattle, came to tell him that a lady wanted him.
"A lady?" he exclaimed, surprised; "do you not know her?"
The servant stared stupidly without replying. How could he know her, when he had passed his life among the cattle and only went to Lancia on some market-day to buy or sell a cow? The count recollected this, and proceeded to inquire:
"No, she is very tall, Señor."
"Eyes very black and bright, pale colour? her gait graceful and elegant?"
And before the servant could answer these questions that he had not understood, he began running in the direction of the house with his heart beating with excitement at the presentiment that it was her.
"Where is she?" he cried, without ceasing running.
"In the courtyard by the garden door," shouted the boy in reply.
He arrived breathless at the courtyard, but before opening the door he stopped for an instant to check his presumption. How could he have thought of such a thing? What devil could have put it into his head?... Notwithstanding he could not dismiss the idea. It was she, it was she—he could not doubt the fact.
He raised the bolt of the large wooden door, painted green, and went in. The courtyard was large. Several outhouses for working purposes were built against the wall. Tied up to a roughly made wooden kennel was an enormous mastiff, who pulled at his chain as if he would break it in his attempts to get near his master.
There at the other end, near the iron gate communicating with the garden, he actually saw her looking through the bars at the flowers. She had her back to him. She was dressed in a light pink and white striped dress, with a little straw hat trimmed with roses. In her left hand she had a sunshade which matched her dress, and in her right she held some silk gloves.
How these details became engraven in his memory! They were indelibly fixed in his mind!
"You here?" he said, feigning a calmness he was very far from feeling. "Who would have thought that you were the señora whose arrival the servant just announced to me?"
"Did you really not think it was me?" she asked, looking at him fixedly.
"No, no, Señora."
But he coloured even as he said it, and the lady smiled kindly.
"Very well; now show me the Malmaison roses you told me about."
The count opened the gate, and they both went through to the garden, which was very large and somewhat neglected.
Since the countess had almost entirely given up coming to the Grange, the servants hardly touched it. Luis was more interested in making experiments with new modes of agriculture, breeding cattle, and draining ground, than in gardening. But there were many kinds of flowers, put there when his mother used to tend them every afternoon, and there were great bushes which time, combined with the fertile soil, had transformed into thick trees.
Whilst they passed along the walks, which were over-grown with moss, the countess explained in high, clear tones how she came to be there.
She had wished to drive to Bellavista, but passing by the little road that led to the Grange, she recollected the beautiful roses, and gave orders to the coachman to go that way. She had never seen the place before, she said; and she became quite enthusiastic over the thick foliage and the intense green of the place. In her country the vegetation was much paler.
"But more fragrant—like the women," said the count with gallantry.
The lady turned to give him a smile of thanks, and went on praising the beauty of the rhododendrons, the azaleas, and the gigantic camellias.
As soon as they had seen the roses, and the count had made her choose some to have sent to her the next day, they directed their steps towards the entrance-gate.
"And are you sure that I only came to see the roses?" said Amalia, suddenly stopping and fixing her eyes upon him.
The count's heart gave a bound, and he commenced to stammer in a lamentable fashion.
"I do not know—this visit, certainly. I should be so pleased if the rose-trees——"
But the lady, taking pity on him, did not let him proceed.
"Well, besides the rose-trees, I came to see the whole place, particularly the wood. And so you can show it to me," she added resolutely, taking him by the arm.
Whereupon the count was conscious of a new and violent emotion, at first painful, and then pleasurable, as he felt the lady's hand upon his arm. And moved to his inmost being at the honour conferred on him, he showed everything of interest on the estate: the beautiful large meadows, the stables, the new machinery for working the mill, and finally the wood.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. Sometimes a smile of amusement played about her lips. She entered into everything with interest, praised the improvements he had made, and suggested fresh ones. And, in going about, she sometimes let the count's arm drop, and then took it again, which inspired the count with many diverse sensations, all intense and exciting. When she noticed he was getting more at his ease, she made some little sudden mischievous remark which plunged him into fresh confusion and made him blush to the roots of his hair.
"Now, count, when you caught sight of me just now, you said to yourself: 'Amalia has fallen in love with me and she cannot resist the desire to come and see me.'"
"Amalia, por Dios! What can make you say that? How could I ever have dared——?"
But the lady, without seeming to notice his distress or to lay any importance on her own words, passed immediately to another subject. She seemed to like shocking him, and keeping him agitated and trembling. And in the furtive glances she cast at him there was the touch of superiority and irony of one, who was sure of the game.
The count turned grave under that enigmatical smile. He saw he was playing an awkward part, and, feeling that she was laughing at him, he made heroic efforts to recover his equanimity.
The lady admired, and was more enthusiastic about the wood than anything. It was a mass of ancient oaks, where the sun never penetrated. The ground was carpeted with thick turf and quite free from caltrops. No other private property was so richly wooded; it was, perhaps, due to the primitive forest where the monastery had been founded which was the origin of Lancia.
The lady found it pleasant to rest a little under the green bower where the light hardly penetrated. A peace, a pleasant calmness sweeter than the silence and calm of a Gothic cathedral, pervaded the place. She leant her back against a tree and gave a long look at the thick foliage around her.
The count stood near. Both were silent for some time. At last the man felt, without seeing it, that the lady's gaze was fixed upon him. He resisted the magnetic attraction of the look for some minutes. When at last he raised his eyes, he saw that her expression was so merry and daring that he dropped them again. Amalia gave vent to a mischievous laugh, which surprised, confused, and somewhat irritated him; and then seeing that her merriment did not cease, he said with a forced smile:
"At what are you laughing, my friend?"
"Nothing, nothing," she returned, putting her handkerchief to her mouth. "Take me to see the house."
And then she took his arm again. The house was a large, very old building of yellowish stone, worm-eaten by age, with two little square towers at the sides. Everything about it was shabby or worn out. Some bars were wanting in the stair-rails as well as in the balconies; the ceilings of the rooms were discoloured, the partition walls cracked, the plaster in holes; the looking-glasses, so much thought of in bygone days, were so covered with dust that they reflected nothing; the walls were damp and dirty, and the pictures hung thereon were so discoloured that one could not see what the artists had intended to depict; the scanty furniture of the rooms was worn out by the use of past generations. The things were all quite done for. Amalia liked the look of past grandeur. How many different beings had lived in that house! How they must have laughed and wept in these large rooms. Each one had its particular name: one was called the cardinal's room, because in times past a cardinal of the family occupied it when on a visit to the Grange; another the portrait-room, because a few pictures hung on the walls; and another the new room, although it looked as old and even older than the rest of the apartments. Everything bore traces of the private life of a family of bygone ages.
"This is the countess's chamber," said Luis, as he took his friend into a moderate-sized room, which, in spite of the dust and ravages of time, looked better furnished than the others. It was an elegant style of apartment, bearing evidence that past generations had not been destitute of a love of decoration. There was a Pompadour escritoire, some chairs of the Regency, several pictures in pastel; and painted on the ceiling were cherubs floating in an atmosphere which had once been blue.
"Is this your mother's room?" asked Amalia.
"No," replied the count, smiling; "my mother sleeps on the other side. It has been called the countess's from time immemorial. Perhaps some old ancestor of mine chose it for herself. I often take my siesta here when the fatigue of going about the estate makes me want to have a sleep."
In one of the corners of the apartment there was a splendid bedstead of carved oak, grown black with age, one of those beds of the fifteenth century that antiquaries go perfectly mad on. The hangings were also very ancient, but there was a modern damask counterpane spread over the mattress.
"So it is here that you retire to think of me to your heart's content, is it not?" said Amalia.
The count looked as stunned as if she had given him a blow on the head.
"I! Amalia! How?"
Then with a sudden assumption of courage he exclaimed:
"Yes, yes, Amalia, you are quite right! I think of you here as, for some time past, I think of you everywhere I go. I do not know what has come to me: I live in a constant state of excitement, which, as you told me, is a sign of true love. I am in fact madly in love with you. I know that it is an atrocity, a crime, but I cannot help myself. Forgive me."
And, like one of his noble ancestors of the Middle Ages, the gentleman fell on his knees at the feet of the lady.
She was terribly angry at first. What? Was he not ashamed of such a confession? Did he not understand that it was an insult to address such words to her in his house? How could he suppose that she could quietly listen to such words? It seemed impossible that the Conde of Onis, such a perfect gentleman, could be so wanting in the respect due to a lady and to himself.
The count remained prostrate on his knees under such a storm of invectives. He knew his words had been of grave import, but the anger that they provoked in the lady was not what he had most feared.
At last Amalia was silent. She regarded him for some seconds with eyes blazing with fury, but a happy smile soon suffused her expressive face. She approached him with a slow, majestic step, put her hand upon his shoulder, and bending down to bring her lips to his ear, she said in a loud voice:
"You are quite right not to be ashamed of anything of this, for I love you at least as much as you love me."
Then the young man seemed to go mad with joy. The terror was over, and he clasped and kissed her knees in a frenzy of delight, breaking into a torrent of incoherent, passionate words, full of fire and truth; whilst she, so short and diminutive, gazed at the adoring Colossus with her mysterious Valencian eyes glowing with passion and love.
It was thus that the Conde of Onis accomplished the difficult task of winning the affections of the elegant Señora of Don Pedro Quiñones de Leon.
The first months of their connection, fraught with poignant remorse and fascinating delight, were very agitating to the count. Amalia went occasionally to the Grange. At the social gathering in the evening she would give an account of her visit in a high-pitched voice; and he was in an agony of confusion, anxiety, and distress, whilst she with perfect sang froid told all that she could tell; spoke of the garden, scolded him for its state of neglect; and she amused herself with bringing home some plants every time she went there, so as to clear the ground, as he did not care for them; in short, her audacity became almost farcical.
"Would you believe it?" she said one day; "there is no bearing with this gentleman since ladies have taken to visiting him. You cannot think what airs he gives himself. I am afraid that the next time I go to the Grange he will make me wait in the hall."
The guests laughed, and said really some notice ought to be taken about it; and as Fernanda smiled she cast an affectionate glance at the count; Don Pedro even relaxed his severe expression and burst into a roar of laughter. At such moments it was indeed a superhuman effort for the count to keep his countenance, when an abyss seemed to open at his feet. When alone with Amalia he reproached her for her audacity, and implored her by all that she held sacred to be more cautious; whilst she, perfectly unmoved, seemed to take a pleasure in his anxiety, and her lips curled in a disdainful enigmatical smile.
As they could not often meet at the Grange, Amalia managed other interviews, by admitting Jacoba into her confidence. In this person's house they met two or three times a week. The count entered by a little door opening on to a certain little street at one o'clock in the day, when people were dining. He had to wait at least two or three hours, and Amalia at last managed to get there under the pretext of having some commission for her protégée. But not being satisfied with this arrangement, she conceived the idea of his entering her house by the pew of the church of San Rafael. The count was horrified at such a manœuvre; all his religious scruples revolted at the idea; he was terrified at the possibility of the discovery of the intrigue and the profanation of the sanctuary. What a scandal it would be! But Amalia laughed at his fears as if the terrible consequences of retribution did not concern her. She was a woman who had absolute confidence in her star. As first-rate toreadors consider themselves quite safe under the very horns of the bull, as long as they keep their presence of mind, so she set danger at defiance, and even went out of her way to court it with a coolness that was foolhardy.
And it must be confessed that her supreme calmness and incredible audacity saved her more than once. The Conde de Onis, the colossal man with a long beard, was a mere puppet in the hands of the bold, unprincipled little woman.
A mad passion had taken possession of them both, especially of her. By degrees she became so accustomed to not living without him, that a day was not bearable without seeing him alone, and to this end she brought incredible efforts of ingenuity and skill into play. If the combination of circumstances was such as to render it impossible for three or four days to have a tête-à-tête, her temper revolted against the restraint like an impatient prisoner, and she was ready to commit the greatest imprudence: she squeezed his hand and gave him little pinches in the presence of guests; she embraced him behind the doors, when under some pretext or another she escorted him into another room; and more than once she kissed him on the lips in the very presence of the Grandee, when he happened to turn his head, whilst Luis trembled and turned pale as a catastrophe seemed imminent.
By the expiration of some months his engagement with Fernanda gradually cooled, and it ended by being broken off altogether. This was all a preconcerted plan of Amalia's, arranged from the beginning with consummate art: she began by telling him how long he might be with his fiancée, notified the number of times he could ask her to dance, and finally it was she who suggested what he was to say to her. And as she had foreseen, the heiress of Estrada-Rosa, being proud, could not brook her lover's coldness, and so gave him back his liberty and his word.
The poor girl confided her trouble to Amalia, who was the only person who knew the cause of the much-talked-of broken engagement. She expressed great indignation at the count's behaviour, and spoke in strong terms of disapprobation of his conduct. In fact, she took the young girl's part and launched into praises on her behalf and spoke most flatteringly of her eyes, figure, discretion, and amiability; and she even went so far as to take ostensible measures for their reconciliation. In the bosom of confidence, particularly among the friends of Don Juan Estrada-Rosa, she was not contented with saying that Fernanda was superior to her ex-lover in every feeling, but she proclaimed Luis as an arrant impostor, hypocrite, &c. And when she saw him the next day in Jacoba's house, she embraced him, choking with laughter, saying:
"What a character I gave you yesterday before the various friends of Don Juan! You don't know! pincers would not get the words out of my mouth again!"
What with all this, and the remorse continually preying on him, the count was in a perpetual state of agitation. How far he was from being happy! But it was a way strewn with flowers, compared to what was coming. Five months after entering into this liaison, Amalia informed him that she believed she was enceinte. She told him this with a smile on her lips, as if she were mentioning that she had drawn a good ticket in the lottery. Luis felt giddy with terror, turned pale, and looked as if he were about to fall.
"Dios mio! what a misfortune!" he exclaimed, covering his face with his hands.
"Misfortune?" she returned in surprise. "Why? I am very happy."
Then seeing his eyes dilate in stupefaction, she laughingly explained that she was glad to have a pledge of their love, and that she had no fear because she would have everything so arranged that nothing would be discovered. And in truth she laced herself so tightly that nobody would have thought another creature's life was bound up in hers. The anxiety and distress of the count during this time of expectancy was awful! If any one looked at her attentively he trembled, and if, in the course of conversation, any guest made a casual allusion to some act of dissimulation, he turned pale as he thought they were speaking of him. He imagined smiles and meaning glances in every face, and the most innocent remarks were fraught in his mind with the deepest and most compromising insinuations.
In the meanwhile, Amalia ate and slept with composure, and her constant cheerfulness astonished the count, whilst it excited his admiration. Time went by, the seven months passed, and then the eighth. And hide as he would the fact from himself, there was no denying that the figure of his beloved was no longer slight; but when he made the remark to her in a great state of anxiety, she burst out laughing:
"Be silent, you foolish creature! You notice it because you know about it. Who is going to suspect anything because I am a little stouter? Sometimes one likes a loose corsage."
When the critical time arrived, she evinced a courage bordering on heroism. Luis wanted her to have a doctor.
"But why?" she said; "Jacoba's services will be quite sufficient, and it would be dangerous to trust the secret to anybody else."
The first symptoms came on in the early morning, so she kept her bed; but it was not until eight o'clock that she sent for Jacoba, who had been sleeping for some days in the house on pretence of making curtains. Then they were both locked in the room where everything in the way of linen was prepared; and without a groan, without an unnecessary movement, this brave woman went through the ordeal. The little creature was subsequently taken away by Jacoba in a bundle of linen after the servants had been sent out on various pretexts.
The count wept with joy and admiration at the happy solution of the difficulty. But when Jacoba told him that he was to take the child to the Quiñones' door, he was quite overwhelmed. However, although his lover's plan quite took him aback, he did what he was told, and the crowning audacity of the lady turned out as she had foreseen. So now that the child was safe for ever, their love not only seemed strengthened and purified, but they felt the delightful flush of victory over unheard-of dangers before finally arriving in the port of safety.
With their heads bent over the child, and sometimes touching its forehead with their lips, they sat with their hands clasped in one another's, and talked, or rather wove dreams in their efforts to gain a glimpse into the unfathomable abysses of the future.
"What was to be the fate of the lovely little creature? How was she to be educated?" Amalia said she would undertake to have it treated like her own daughter, she would have her brought up as a perfect little lady, and she was sure Don Pedro would not oppose her in the matter. And as he would have no sons, what was more likely than that he would take a fancy to it and leave her a lot of money at his death.
But the count repudiated this idea with scorn. The child should have nothing from Don Pedro. He would leave her all his own money.
"But perhaps you will marry and have children," returned the lady, glancing at him with a mischievous smile. Then his fingers were laid on her lips in protest.
"Silence! silence! You know I can't bear anything of that; I am for ever united to thee."
Whereupon she kissed him with effusion.
"That's a compact, is it not so?"
"It is a compact," he replied, in a tone of decision.
"But do not trouble about leaving her your property in a will, because it would give rise to the suspicion that she is your daughter."
This difficulty absorbed them both for some minutes. Both were busy devising some means of eluding it. The count wanted to leave it to some confidential person in trust; but this idea also bristled with drawbacks, and they thought it would be better for the money to accumulate in his name in some bank until she came of age, and then a father could be invented who had fallen from the skies.
At last Amalia concluded by saying: "We shall talk for ever of this. Leave it to me."
And he was only too pleased to leave it to her, as he had unbounded confidence in her inexhaustible imagination, power of will, and limitless audacity.
When tired of talking of the future, they turned their attention to the present. The child had to be baptised, and the ceremony was fixed for the following day.
"Yes, and we have settled that I am to be the godmother, and you the godfather."
"What! I?" he exclaimed in astonishment. "But, my dear woman, do you not understand that it will give rise to suspicions?"
But the lady was obstinate. She had set her heart on his being godfather. If it gave rise to suspicions, well and good. She would do it without the least fear.
Then, seeing that he was really distressed at the idea, she changed her mind.
"Do not vex yourself, man, do not vex yourself," she said, giving a little pull at his beard. "It was only a joke. It would be fun to see you hold it at the font. I believe you would call out: 'Señores, here! come every one of you and see the father of this child.'"
It was finally settled that the godfather was to be Quiñones, with Don Enrique Valero as his proxy, and she was to be the godmother, with Maria Josefa as her representative; and the count was quite satisfied with the arrangement. All that was cleverly and prudently arranged in a way to secure the welfare of his child. But just when he was feeling more comfortable, a noise in the passage made him jump from his armchair, and turn perfectly livid.
"What is the matter, man?"
"That noise?"
"It is Jacoba."
But seeing he was still uneasy, and his eyes looked scared, she got up, and holding the child in her arms she opened the door and exchanged a few words with Jacoba, who was in fact still there. After giving her the baby and locking the door, she came back and sat down again.
"How could you be such a coward, eh?"
"It is not cowardice," he returned, blushing. "It is being so constantly upset. I don't know what has come to me. Perhaps it is conscience."
"Bah! it is because you are a coward. What is the good of having such a powerful body if you have no spirit in it?"
Then, noticing the expression of pain and distress that overshadowed his face, she turned and embraced him with enthusiasm.
"No, you are not a coward, but you are innocent, eh? And it is that that I love you for. I love you more than my life, and you love your little girl, don't you? I am all yours. You are my only love. I am not really married."
Then she caressed him in a kitten-like way, passing her delicate white hands over his face, and kissing him several times; then she put her arms round his neck, and gave him little mouse-like bites. And at the same time, she, who was generally so grave and quiet, let flow a perfect stream of affectionate words which calmed and charmed him to a wonderful degree. The fire which shone in her mysterious, large, treacherous-looking eyes, now broke forth in veritable flames. Passion had taken possession of her being, but it was also fraught with the malicious pleasure of a satisfied caprice, vengeance and treachery.
The Conde de Onis felt himself more in her power with every day that dawned. The caresses of his lover were tender, but her eyes, even in the moments of greatest abandon, retained a cruel cat-like look; and his love was strangely mingled with fear. Some times his superstitious mind would make him wonder if this Valencian woman were an incarnate devil of temptation.
After saying three or four times that he must go without being able to break away from her, he at last got free from her arms, and rose from the armchair. The farewell was long as usual, for Amalia would not leave him until she saw he was quite intoxicated with the power of her caresses.
Jacoba was expecting him outside the door. After taking him along several corridors, they came to the place of the secret staircase leading into the library. Here she signed to him to wait whilst she reconnoitered to see that nobody was about the passages. Then she came back again to tell him all was right, and the count went down with as little noise as possible.
The intermediary left him at the passage after opening the door. Then he bent down with his hands on the ground to prevent any one seeing him from the street, and so crossed the passage to the pew. He opened the door and entered. The darkness blinded him. He made a few steps forward, when he felt a sudden blow on his shoulder, and a rough voice said in his ear, "Die, wretch!"
The blood froze in his veins, but he gave a spring forward and saw a dark heap blacker than the darkness. Quick as a dart it threw itself on him, and he would soon have done for it with his enormous strength if he had not heard a stifled laugh, and the voice of Amalia said:
"Take care, Luis, or you will hurt me!"
He was dumb with astonishment for some minutes.
"But how did you get here?" he said at last.
"By the front staircase. I popped on this black cap and ran down."
Then, seeing that he looked cross and disgusted at a joke in such bad taste, she stood on tiptoe, put her arms round his neck, and after pressing a long and passionate kiss upon his lips, she said, in a coaxing tone:
"Now I know that you are not a coward, but I wanted to prove it."