"Yes."

This dialogue, carried on very rapidly in a low voice, was noticed by the Duke, who went up to Pinedo and asked him mysteriously, with an expressive sign: "I say--Arbos and Pepa Frias?"

"These two months past, at least."

The gaze which the banker now bestowed on the widow was widely different from his former glances. He was more attentive, more respectful, keener, and presently somewhat meditative. Calderon had approached the Minister and was talking to him with polite attention; Salabert joined them. But the great man was not inclined to talk of business, or perhaps he was afraid of the financier; the press had thrown out some malevolent hints as to Requena's transactions with the Government. So in a few minutes the Duke attached himself, instead, to Pepa Frias, and stood chatting with her in a corner of the room.

Clementina was growing more and more impatient, longing vehemently to get away. Still, she would not go, for fear her father should insist on accompanying her. The Minister was the first to depart, taking leave with the same impressive absent-mindedness, never looking at the person he addressed, but up at the ceiling. The Duke meanwhile had quite taken possession of the widow, displaying such effusive gallantry that he might have been about to make her a declaration of love. The General, observing this, said to Pinedo:

"Look how eager the Duke has become! He is certainly making love to Pepa."

"No," replied the other very gravely. "He is making love to the transfer of the Riosa Mining Company."

At this moment Pepa Frias announced in a loud voice that she was going.

"Where are you off to, next?" asked the banker.

"To Lhardy's shop, to buy some Italian sausages."

"I will take you there."

"Do--and I will treat you to some little tarts."

The Duke was delighted to accept the invitation.

"Come along, too, child?" she added to her daughter.

Clementina waited only five minutes longer. As soon as she felt sure of not overtaking her father on the stairs, she rose, and, under the pretext of having forgotten some commission, she also took leave.

CHAPTER III

SALABERT'S DAUGHTER.

Clementina descended the stairs in some anxiety, and on setting foot in the street, breathed a sigh of relief. She went off at a brisk pace down the Calle del Siete de Julia, across the Plaza Mayor, and on through the Calle de Atocha. On reaching this, she suddenly remembered the youth who had previously followed her, and turned her head in anxiety. No one.

There was nothing to alarm her. No one was in pursuit. At the door of one of the best houses in the street she stopped, looked hastily and stealthily both ways, and went in. A hardly perceptible sign of inquiry to the porter, was answered by his hand to his cap. She flew to the back staircase, to escape any unpleasant meeting no doubt, and ran up in such a hurry that on reaching the second floor she was quite breathless, and pressed one hand to her heart. With the other, she knocked twice at one of the doors, which was instantly and noiselessly opened; she rushed in as if the enemy were at her heels.

"Better late than never," said a young man who had opened it, and who carefully shut it again.

He was a man of eight-and-twenty or thirty, above the middle height, slightly built, with delicate and regular features, a colour in his cheeks, a moustache curled up at the ends, a pointed chin-tuft, and black hair carefully parted down the middle. He looked like a toy soldier--that is to say, he was of the effeminate military type. His face was not unlike those of the dolls on which tailors display ready-made clothing, and was not less unpleasing and repulsive. He wore a pearl-grey velvet morning jacket, elaborately braided, and slippers of the same material and colour, with initials embroidered in gold. It was evident at a glance that he was one of those men who care greatly for the decoration of their person; who touch up every detail with as much finish and attention as a sculptor bestows on a statue; who believe that curling and gumming their moustaches is a sacred and bounden duty; who accept the fact that the Supreme Creator has bestowed on them a fascinating presence, and do their best to improve on His work.

"How late you are!" he exclaimed once more, fixing on her face a conventional gaze of sad reproach.

The lady rewarded him with a gracious smile, saying at the same time in a tone of raillery, "It is never too late if luck comes at last."

She took his hand and pressed it fondly; then, still holding it, she led him along the pa.s.sages to a small room which seemed to be the young man's study. It was a luxurious den, artistically decorated; the walls were hung with dark blue plush curtains, held up by rings on a bronze rod under the cornice; there were arm-chairs of various shapes and sizes, a writing-table in walnut-wood ornamented with wrought-iron, and by the side of it a book-stand with a few books--about two dozen perhaps. Suspended by silken cords from the ceiling, and against the walls, were horse-trappings and several saddles, common and military, with their stirrups hanging down; curbs of many ages and lands, whips, fine woollen horse-cloths richly embroidered, gold and silver spurs, all very handsome and in perfect order. The hippic tastes of the owner of this "study" were no less evident in the corridor which led to it from the door; everywhere there were portraits of horses saddled or stripped.

Even on the writing-table, the inkstand, paper-weights, and paper-knife were decorated with horse-shoes stirrups, or whips. Through an arch with columns, only half-closed by a handsome tapestry curtain representing a youth in powder kneeling to a lady _a la Pompadour_, a handsome mahogany bedstead with a canopy was visible.

On reaching this little room the lady let herself drop gracefully into a pretty little lounging chair, and went on in a light jesting tone: "So you are not glad to see me?"

"Very. But I should have been glad to see you sooner. I have been waiting for you above an hour and a half."

"And what then? Is it such a sacrifice to wait an hour and a half for the woman who adores you? Have you not read how Leander swam every evening across the h.e.l.lespont to see his beloved? No, you have never read that nor anything else. Well, I believe that knowledge would not suit you. Books would spoil that pretty colour in your cheeks, and undermine the strength and agility with which you ride and drive.

Besides, some men were born only to be handsome and strong and to amuse themselves, and you are one of them."

"Come, come. It seems to me that you regard me as an idiot ignorant even of my alphabet?" exclaimed the young man somewhat piqued and distressed, as he stood in front of her.

"No, my dear, no!" she replied, laughing, and seizing one of his hands she kissed it with a sudden impulse of tenderness. "Now you are insulting me. Do you think I could love an idiot? Take this," she went on, taking off her hat. "Put my hat on the bed with the greatest care.

Now come here, wretch that you are. You are so touchy that you forget you began by being rude to me. An hour and a half! What then? Come close; kneel down; wait till I pull your hair for you."

But the young man, instead of obeying her, drew up a smoking chair, and perched himself on it in front of her.

"Do you know what kept me? Why that tiresome boy who followed me again."

And as she spoke she suddenly grew serious: a well-defined frown puckered her pretty brows.

"It is insufferable," she went on. "I do not know what to do. Whenever I stir, morning or evening, this shadow haunts me. I had to take refuge at Mariana's; then, having gone there I had no choice but to stay a little while. Papa came in, and to avoid his escorting me home I had to wait till he went first. So you see."

"A pretty fellow is that boy!" exclaimed the man, with a laugh.

"Very much so! It would be very amusing if he found out where I come, and every one were to hear of it, and it were to reach my husband's ears. Laugh away, laugh away!"

"Why not? Who but you would think of objecting to so platonic an admirer? Have you had any note from him? Has he ever spoken a word to you?"

"That would not matter in the least. It is the persecution which jars on my nerves. He is just such a boy as would be capable out of mere spite, if he detected me entering this house, of writing an anonymous letter.

And you know the peculiar position in which I stand with regard to my husband."

"There is not a chance of it. Those who write anonymous notes are not admirers, but envious women. Shall I meet him face to face and give him a fright?"

"How can you ask such a question!" exclaimed Clementina, indignantly.

"Listen Pepe, you are a man of feeling, and have plenty of intelligence, but you sadly lack a little more delicacy to enable you to understand certain things. You should give rather less time to your club and your horses, and cultivate your mind a little."

"Is that your opinion?" cried Pepe, angered extremely by this reproof.

"Well, if you wish that I should not tell you such things, there are others which you should not say."

Pepe Castro shrugged his shoulders scornfully, and rose from his chair.

He paced the room two or three times with an air of abstraction, and stopped at last in front of a little picture which he took down to dust it with his handkerchief. Clementina watched him with anger in her eyes.

She suddenly started to her feet as if moved by a spring; but then, controlling her petulance, she quietly went into the adjoining room, took her hat off the bed, and began to put it on in front of a looking-gla.s.s, very deliberately, though the slight trembling of her hands still betrayed the annoyance she was repressing.

"There," she presently exclaimed, in a tone of indifference, "I am going. Do you want anything out?"

The young man turned round, and exclaimed with surprise: "Already!"

"Already," replied she with affected determination.