"My poor boy! I will set this matter right."

CHAPTER XXVII

A TERM OF PEACE

The Senora de Belinchon descended the iron staircase leading to the second floor, and, meeting the grandee's valet, she asked:

"What is the senor duke doing?"

"He is painting," replied the servant, looking with surprise and astonishment at Dona Paula's red eyes.

"Tell him that I wish to speak to him."

While the man went to inform his master, Dona Paula thought her strength would give way, for she began to feel premonitory symptoms of the spasms to which she was occasionally subject; but her strong wish to restore peace to her children overcame her weakness at the moment. Commending herself to our Lady of Pity, she entered Don Jaime's study, full of resolution.

The senor, clad in the fantastic garb worn at home in the morning, came forward to receive her with his palette and brushes in his hand.

"Senora," he said, bowing respectfully and raising the gold-ta.s.seled Turkish cap that covered his head, "I am sorry you troubled to come up.

A message would have summoned me immediately to your presence."

Dona Paula made a gesture of thanks, putting her hand to her heart, which was beating at her side like a sledge-hammer. The duke looked at her in surprise.

"Take a seat, senora," he said, putting his palette and brushes on a chair.

Whereupon the lady dropped into an armchair, and Don Jaime remained standing.

"The door must be shut," she said, beginning to rise from her seat; but the gentleman antic.i.p.ated her, and then took up his stand in front of the lady, squaring his feet with exaggerated respect, and waiting for her to speak.

Several minutes pa.s.sed in silence, then, raising her sad eyes, she said:

"Senor duke, you have conferred a great honor on us in coming to our house. We can never sufficiently thank you for this mark of favor--"

The duke bowed as he raised his heavy eyelids to cast upon his interlocutor a look tinged with curiosity.

"Why do you not sit down?" asked Dona Paula, interrupting her speech.

"I am very comfortable, senora; continue."

But the interruption had upset her; she could not proceed for some minutes. Finally she murmured:

"It is dreadful!--you do not know, senor duke, what I am going through now. I wish I were dead!"

And the tears rushing to her eyes, she drew her handkerchief from her pocket and buried her face in it.

The duke, now quite astonished, said:

"Calm yourself, senora. I am a true friend of both you and De Belichon.

Whatever trouble you may have, let me share it as if it were mine, and I will do what I can to a.s.suage it."

"Many thanks, many thanks," murmured the lady, without taking her handkerchief from her eyes; and after a minute's silence she said in a trembling voice:

"Will you do me a very great favor? A favor for which I will thank you all the days of my life--but I don't dare ask it?"

"I repeat that I am at your service; and that anything I can do for you, you may consider done."

"Oh! no, it is outrageous in me! You would never think, senor duke, that your visit to this house has caused much misery. Your attention and your admiration of my daughter Ventura's frank, merry disposition have given rise to remarks in the town."

"Oh!" interrupted the duke, smiling to hide a certain feeling of shame.

"Yes, very offensive remarks about all of us; more especially about my son-in-law, who is as dear to us as if he were our own son. I do not blame you or her. I am sure that in your case it has only been due to overattention, which, in a little place like this, where nothing escapes notice--Perhaps you, senor, ought not to have--She has been imprudent and frivolous, she was always faulty in that way--She is a girl with a will of her own, as one may say--If there were no divisions in the town there would not be this fearful feud, which is nearly the death of us; probably n.o.body would have noticed--Unfortunately our enemies seize on the most trifling pretext to annoy us and put us to shame--An article has come out which attacks my son-in-law in such a shameless way--And this I can not allow--"

Dona Paula's courtesy had diminished with her speech, and the final words were rapped out defiantly. A slight flush suffused the duke's affrighted face. He ought, of course, to have seen the gravity of the situation, but he merely thought: "This person is reading me a lesson."

"I am very sorry," he said in an obsequious tone, "to have caused you all any trouble. But I am so used to being an object of public comment and attack that the remarks and articles you have just mentioned don't annoy me in the slightest. The lower cla.s.ses always try to pay off the superiority of the upper ones by finding fault with them. It is the eternal law of give and take that can not be altered."

"That is all very well, senor duke, for such an exalted personage as yourself--But we are quite different; we are not in such a high position, and evil tongues, you must know, can do us a lot of harm,"

returned Dona Paula, so simply that it sounded ironical.

The duke, somewhat irritated, played nervously with the ta.s.sel of the cap he held in his hand, as he said:

"I repeat, I am very sorry, senora. If I had thought that my innocent attentions to your daughter could have been subjected to such malignant interpretation, I would have been more careful in proffering them. In the future I will be more discreet. Lord!" he added, smiling, "how is it possible to imagine that a man of my years could regard a child like Ventura in any but a paternal way!"

This remark was supposed to completely exculpate him.

"Oh, senor duke, men in your position are never old. The brilliancy of it is attractive to women--Therefore, it is not sufficient to be merely more prudent in the future; the world must be robbed of all pretext for remarks--"

The duke turned suddenly pale, hesitated a few seconds, and finally said:

"By my leaving the house, eh?"

"This was the favor I came to beg of you," she said without raising her eyes, and in a tone of humility.

Don Jaime turned a shade paler, took a turn up and down the room, crushing the Turkish cap in his clenched hand, uttered a sarcastic laugh, and returning to his place in front of Dona Paula, he said with mocking arrogance:

"So you turn me out of the house, senora?"

"I, senor duke? What an idea! The only thing I want is to restore peace to my children and avoid a catastrophe."

"What catastrophe?" asked the duke, while an ominous light shone in his dull eyes.

Dona Paula saw it boded danger for her son-in-law, so she hastened to repair her slip.

"The catastrophe of my son-in-law being insulted by those wretches--Look here, senor, if you are offended at the request I have just made you make a great mistake--We are so honored at your coming to our house that nothing could have flattered us so much as this favor--My husband exerted himself to prefer the request, and he was delighted when he heard that you accepted the invitation. You can never understand how proud I was to have such a distinguished person in my house--I, a woman of the people, the daughter of a sailor, the granddaughter of a watchman, known in the place as the Serena, as my mother and grandmother were before me--certainly I should have been prouder still if it had been some years ago--one's pride decreases with disillusions and troubles. But at all events I am very flattered, and only the fear of the great troubles which may accrue to my children obliges me to take this step; so you will forgive me, senor."

Don Jaime took another turn across the room, stopped in the centre to think a minute, and ended by shrugging his shoulders and wreathing his lips in a scornful way. Then advancing toward Dona Paula, he said: