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, pa.s.sionate words, full of fire and truth; whilst she, so short and diminutive, gazed at the adoring Colossus with her mysterious Valencian eyes glowing with pa.s.sion and love.

It was thus that the Conde of Onis accomplished the difficult task of winning the affections of the elegant Senora of Don Pedro Quinones 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 _protegee_. 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 manoeuvre; 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 pa.s.sion 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 circ.u.mstances was such as to render it impossible for three or four days to have a _tete-a-tete_, 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 _fiancee_, 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed, 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 Quinones' 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 acc.u.mulate 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 G.o.dmother, and you the G.o.dfather."

"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 G.o.dfather. 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: 'Senores, here!

come every one of you and see the father of this child.'"

It was finally settled that the G.o.dfather was to be Quinones, with Don Enrique Valero as his proxy, and she was to be the G.o.dmother, 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 pa.s.sage 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.