WEEKS and months went by. Clementina spent the summer at Biarritz as usual. Raimundo followed her, leaving his sister in charge of some relations, and only returned at the end of September. A storm had swept over the orphan's dwelling which had completely wrecked its happiness. Raimundo, entirely neglecting his methodical habits of study, had rushed into the world of pleasure with the ardour of a novice. His sister, amazed at such a change, remonstrated mildly but without effect. The young man behaved with the petulance of a spoilt child, answering her sharply, or if she spoke with sterner decision, melting into tears, declaring that he was miserable, that she did not love him, that it would have been better if he had died when his mother died, and so forth. Aurelia saw that there was nothing for it but to suffer in silence, and kept her fears and gloomy anticipations to herself. She could too easily guess the cause of this change, but neither of them ever made any allusion to it; Raimundo because he could not speak to his sister of his connection with Clementina, and she because she could not bear that he should suppose she even understood it.

Meanwhile it led our young friend to great extravagance, far beyond what his income allowed. To enable him to keep up with the lady's carriage as she drove in the fashionable avenues, he bought a fine horse, after taking some riding lessons. Theatres, flowers and gifts for his mistress, amusements shared with his new friends of the Savage Club, dress, trinkets, everything, in short, which a youth "about town" thinks indispensable, cost him enormous sums in proportion to his income. He was forced to touch his capital. This, as we know, was in the form of shares in a powder manufactory, and in the funds. His mother had kept her securities in an iron box inside her wardrobe. When she died, the guardian she had appointed to her two children, examined the documents and made due note of them, but as Raimundo was esteemed a very steady young fellow of impeccable conduct, and as he had for some time past presented and cashed the coupons, his uncle did not take the securities out of his keeping, but left them in the box where he had found them. And now Raimundo, needing money at any cost, and not daring to borrow it of any one, broke his trust, for he was not yet of legal age, and sold some of the securities. And the strange thing is, that although he had hitherto lived so blamelessly, upright in thought and honest in purpose, he did it without feeling any very deep remorse. His passion had so completely stultified and altered him.

Of course he did not do this without its leading to worse consequences. His uncle, hearing of his extravagant expenditure, came to the house one day, shut himself up with him in his study and attacked him point-blank:

"We must settle accounts together, Raimundo. From what I am told, and from what I can see, you are living at a rate which you cannot possibly afford. This is a serious matter, and, as your trustee, I must know where the money comes from, if not for your own sake, at any rate for your sister's."

Raimundo was greatly startled. He turned pale and muttered some unintelligible words. Then finding himself at bay, at once perceiving that his safety depended on this interview—that is to say, the safety of his love affair—he did not hesitate to lie boldly.

"Yes, uncle, it is true that I am spending a good deal, more than my income would permit, no doubt. But you need not therefore conclude that it is the capital I inherited from my parents."

"Well, then?"

"Well, then," said the young man, and his voice dropped as if he had some difficulty in speaking, "I cannot tell you whence I get the money, uncle, it is a matter of honour."

His guardian was mystified.

"Of honour! I do not know what that may mean. But listen to me, boy; I cannot let the matter drop. My position is critical. If I do not take proper care of your interests I may find myself called upon to pay up, and there is no mercy for trustees."

Raimundo remained silent for some seconds, at last, stammering and hesitating, he said:

"If you must know then I will tell you. You have heard perhaps of my intimacy with a lady?"

"Yes, I have heard something of a flirtation between you and Osorio's wife."

"Well, that explains the mystery," said the nephew, colouring violently.

"So that, in point of fact, this woman"——said the elder, snapping his thumb and finger.

Raimundo bent his head and said no more, or, to be exact, his silence said everything. The man who had indignantly refused his mistress's bank-notes now confessed himself guilty of this humiliation, though perfectly innocent, simply out of fear.

His uncle was a vulgar mortal enough, who kept a shop in the Calle de Carmen. His nephew's confession, far from rousing his indignation, raised the youth in his esteem.

"Well, my dear fellow! I am glad to see that you have hatched out at last and are beginning to know the ways of the world. Ah, you rogue, how quiet you have kept it!"

But as he still remained in the study, betraying the remains of a suspicion, Raimundo, with the audacity peculiar to women and weak men in critical circumstances, said firmly enough:

"My capital and my sister's are intact; I can show you the securities this very minute."

He took out the key and was going to fetch the box. His uncle stopped him.

"No need, my boy, no need. What for?"

And thus he escaped as by a miracle from this dreadful predicament, which might so easily have ended in a catastrophe. At the same time, his triumph cost him many moments of bitter reflection, and a collapse of mind and body which made him quite ill for a time. It is impossible to break suddenly with all the traditions and ideas which constitute the back-bone of our character without the acutest pain.

At about this time a gentleman from Chili came to call on him; a naturalist himself, and, like Raimundo, devoted to the study of butterflies. He had last come from Germany, and was on his way home to America; he had read some of the young man's scientific papers, and having also heard of his fine collection, he would not pass through Madrid without visiting it. Raimundo received him with great pleasure, and some little shame; for some months he had scarcely thought of scientific subjects, and had neglected his specimens. The South American nevertheless found it extremely interesting and was full of intelligent sympathy; he told him that he was commissioned by his Government to recruit some young men of talent to fill the professors' chairs lately created at Santiago in Chili. If AlcÁzar would emigrate one of them was open to him.

In any other circumstances Raimundo, who had no tie of blood excepting his sister, would certainly have decided on this step. But as it was, enmeshed by the toils of love, the proposal struck him as so absurd that he could but smile with a trace of contempt, and he politely declined it as though he were a millionaire, or a man at the head of Spanish society.

Then to pay for his journey to Biarritz, he was again obliged to sell some shares in the funds. He carried five thousand francs with him, a more than ample sum for his summer in France. But at the end of a few days, led away by the example of his friends, he took to betting at the Casino, on the game of racing with dice, and in two evenings he had lost everything. Not being accustomed to these proceedings, the only thing he could think of to help himself was to return to Madrid at once, sell some more shares, and come back again. His fortune was dwindling from day to day. By the beginning of the winter he had sacrificed several thousand dollars; but this did not check his lavish expenditure. Aurelia, who from some hints of her uncle, or suspicions of her own, imagined that she knew from whom the money came, was melancholy and distressed. Her eyes, as she looked at her brother, were full of grief and pity, not unmingled with indignation.

So matters went on till the Carnival. The Duchess of Requena's health had been improved by some waters in Germany, to which her husband had taken her in the autumn. No sooner had she made her will in favour of her step-daughter, than he devoted himself to taking care of her, knowing how important her existence was to him. The great speculator's affairs meanwhile were progressing satisfactorily. He had bought the mines at Riosa, as he had proposed, money down. From that moment he had been waging covert war against the rest of the company, selling shares at lower and lower prices, to depreciate their value. This had worked entirely to his satisfaction. In a few months the price had fallen from a hundred and twenty, at which they had stood just after the sale of the property, to eighty-three. Salabert waited on from day to day to produce a panic, by throwing a large number of them into the market, and so bring the quotation down to forty. Then, by means of his agents in Madrid, Paris, and London, he meant to buy up half the shares, plus one, and so to be master of the whole concern.

It was at this time that, in order to serve his political ends, as well as to gratify his native taste for display—in spite of his counter-balancing avarice—he determined to give a fancy dress ball, in his magnificent residence, inviting all the aristocracy, and securing the presence of the royal family. Preparations were begun two months beforehand. Although the palace was splendidly fitted up, he had some rather heavy and over-large pieces of furniture removed from the drawing-rooms, and replaced by others from Paris, of lighter and simpler style. He got rid of some of the hangings, and purchased several decorative works of art, which it must be owned were certainly lacking. Three weeks before the day fixed for the ball he sent out the invitations. Three weeks, he thought, were not too much to allow his guests to prepare their costumes. Fancy dress was indispensable; gentlemen to wear dominoes at the very least. The newspapers had soon announced the ball to every town in Spain.

As her stepmother took little interest in such things, and from her delicate health was not able to play an active part in the preparations, Clementina was the life and soul of the whole affair. She spent all her days in her father's house, save only a few hours which she bestowed on Raimundo. Osorio at this juncture took it into his head to have their two little girls home from school, one ten and the other eleven years old, to spend a few days with their parents; but the poor little things had to return some days sooner than their father had promised, because Clementina was so busy that she scarcely found time to speak to them. This made their father so angry that, one day, without allowing them to take leave of their mother, he put them into the carriage, and himself accompanied them back to school. That evening, however, when Clementina returned home, there was a violent quarrel between them on the subject.

Raimundo, too, found himself neglected; still he looked forward with childish delight to this entertainment, at which he meant to appear as a court page. This was an idea suggested by Clementina. The model for his dress was taken from a famous picture in the Senate-house. For herself, she had fallen in love with a portrait of Margaret of Austria, the queen of Philip III., painted by Pantoja. She ordered a black velvet dress, very closely fitting, with pink silk slashings braided with silver; and there can be no doubt that it was a costume singularly well adapted to set off her fine and ample figure and the imposing beauty of her face.

The Duke himself worked hard at the less ornamental details; the erection, for instance, of a gallery for the musicians, which was to be built up against the wall, between the two large drawing-rooms, and embowered in shrubs and flowering plants; the arrangements for hats and wraps, the laying of carpets, the removal of furniture, and so forth. Salabert was a terribly hard overseer, a real driver of the workmen. He never allowed them to rest, and expected them to be incessantly on the alert. He never gave them a moment's peace, nor was satisfied with what they did.

One day a cabinet of carved ebony had to be moved, from a room where the ladies were to sit to the card-room. The workmen, under the direction of the master carpenter, were carrying it slung, while the Duke followed, bidding them be careful, with an accompaniment of objurgations.

"Damn it all, be quick. Move a little quicker, can't you, you snub-nosed cur! Now, mind that chandelier!—lower Pepe, lower—lower, I say, you ass! Damn it, now raise it again."

As they went through the door, the head carpenter, seeing that they might easily hurt themselves, called out: "Mind your fingers!"

"Mind the mouldings! Curse your fingers," exclaimed the Duke. "Do you think I care for your fingers, you louts?"

And one of the men looked him in the face with an indescribable expression of hatred and scorn.

When the cabinet was in its place the Duke saw it fixed, and then went to his room to brush off the dust. Soon after, he went down the grand staircase, and getting into his carriage went out.

At last the great day arrived. The newspapers announced the ball for the last time with a grand flourish of trumpets. The Duke de Requena had spent a million of francs in preparations, they said, and they also gave it to be understood that all the flowers had been sent from Paris. And this was true. The Duke, born in Valencia, the loveliest garden of Europe, ordered flowers from France for his ball to the amount of some thousands of dollars. Camellias strewed the very floors in the ante-room and passages; hundreds of exotic plants decorated the hall, the corridors, and the rooms. An army of servants, in knee-breeches and a gaudy livery, stood at every corner where they might be wanted. A detachment of horse-guards was posted at the garden entrance to keep order among the carriages, with the help of the police. The cloak-room, erected for the occasion, was a luxurious apartment, where every arrangement had been made to preserve the ladies' magnificent wraps, or sorties de bal, as it is the fashion to call them, from being lost or damaged.

The grand staircase was a blaze of electric light, the hall and dining-room were lighted with gas: the dancing-room with wax candles. The sitting-rooms and card-room had oil-lamps with wide and elaborate shades, and in these rooms fires were blazing cheerfully.

Clementina received the company in the first drawing-room, close to the ante-room. She took her stepmother's place here because DoÑa Carmen had not sufficient strength to stand for so long. The Duchess sat in the inner room, surrounded by friends. The Duke and Osorio, at the door between the hall and ante-room, offered an arm to the ladies as they arrived and conducted them to Clementina.

This lady's costume set off her beauty, as she had intended, to the greatest advantage. Her exquisite figure seemed even more finely moulded in this close fitting dress, and her head, with its magnificent coppery hair, rose above the black velvet like a queenly flower. King Phillip III. would gladly have exchanged the real Margaret for such a counterfeit. A rumour was current in the rooms, and made public next day in the papers, that a hairdresser had come from Paris by the express train to dress her head.

The motley crowd soon began to fill the rooms. Every epoch of history, every country of the world had sent representatives to Salabert's ball. Moors, Jews, Chinese, Venetians, Greeks and Romans—Louis XIV. and the Empire, Queens and slaves, nymphs and gipsies, Amazons and Sibyls, grisettes and vestals, walked arm-in-arm, or stood chatting in groups, and laughing with cavaliers of the last century, Flemings of the fourteenth, pages and necromancers. Most of the men, however, had adopted the Venetian doublet and short cloak. The orchestra had already played two or three waltzes, but as yet no one was dancing. They awaited the arrival of the Royal personages.

Raimundo was wandering about the rooms with the familiarity of an intimate friend, smiling at every one with the modest frankness which made him singularly attractive, though strange to a society where cold, not to say scornful, manners are regarded as the stamp of dignity and rank. The young entomologist had been for some time living in a delicious whirl, a sort of golden dream, such as humble natures are often addicted to. His page's costume, of the date of Isabella the Great, suited him well, and more than one pretty girl turned her head to look at him. Now and then he made his way to where Clementina was on duty, and without speaking they could exchange looks and smiles. On one of these occasions he saw Pepe Castro, in the dress of a cavalier of the Court of Charles I., approach to pay his respects.

"How is this?" he said in her ear. "Are you not yet tired of your cherub?"

"I am never tired of what is good," said she with a smile.

"Thank you," he replied, sarcastically.

"There is nothing to thank me for; are you trying to pick a quarrel?" And she turned away with a shrug of contempt to speak to the Condesa de Cotorraso, who came in at the moment.

Raimundo had watched this brief colloquy. Its confidential tone was a stab to him. For a moment he did not move; Esperancita passed close in front of him, but he did not see her. It was the child's first appearance at a ball. She wore a pretty Venetian dress of a rich red colour, cut low; her mother was magnificent as a Dutch burgomaster's wife, in brown, embroidered with gold and silver, with a lace ruff and necklace of diamonds and pearls. What pangs these costumes must have cost her luckless husband! In the first instance, when this ball was under discussion, he had supposed that some combination of old clothes would answer their purpose, and had made no difficulties. When he saw the dresses and the dressmaker's bill he was breathless. He was ready to cry Thief! Woe befall that miserable Salabert and the hour in which he had thought of this ball, and all the Venetian and Dutch ladies that had ever lived! And what most weighed on his soul was the reflection that these costly garments were to be worn for but one night. Four thousand pesetas thrown into the gutter! as he repeated a hundred times a day.

Esperancita looked at AlcÁzar, expecting him to bow; but seeing that he was gazing elsewhere, she, too, looked round at the group about Clementina, and immediately understood the situation. A cloud of distress came over her, as over Raimundo. But suddenly her eyes sparkled, and her whole ingenuous and insignificant little face was lighted up, transfigured by an indefinable charm. Pepe Castro was coming towards her.

"Charming, charming!" murmured the Adonis in an absent way, as he bowed affectedly.

The girl blushed with delight.

"Will you honour me with the first waltz?"

At this very moment she found herself the centre of a group of young men, all buzzing round CalderÓn's money-bags, and eager to compliment his daughter. Among these was Cobo Ramirez. They were all pressing her to give them a dance, each in turn signing the initials of his illustrious name on Esperancita's card. Ramoncito, who was standing a few yards off, did not join the little crowd—faithful to the advice given him, now above a year ago, by his friend and adviser Castro; though hitherto these tactics had proved unavailing, for Esperancita remained insensible to his devotion. Still, he would not ascribe this to any fault in the method, but to his lack of courage to follow it out with sufficient vigour, without hesitancy or backsliding. If the girl happened to look kindly at him, or speak to him more gently than usual, farewell diplomacy!

At this moment he was casting grim looks at the crowd which had gathered round her, and vaguely replying to Cotorraso, who had of late taken a most oppressive fancy to him, button-holing him wherever he met him, to explain his new methods of extracting oil. The young deputy had not gained in dignity from his showy dress and white wig, as a gentleman of the eighteenth century: he looked for all the world like a footman.

Suddenly there was a stir in the ante-room. The Royal party had arrived. The company collected about the door-ways. The Duke and Duchess, Clementina and Osorio, went to the outside steps to receive them, and the music played the Royal March. The King and Queen came in, walking slowly between the two ranks of guests, stopping now and then when they saw any one known to them to bestow a gracious greeting. The recipient of such honour bowed or curtsied to the ground, kissing the Royal hand with grateful effusiveness. The ladies especially humbled themselves with a rapture they could not conceal, and a gush of loyalty and affection which brought the blood to their cheeks.

The royal quadrille was immediately formed, and Clementina left her place by the door to dance in it. The Sovereign led out the Duchess, who made this great effort to please her husband. A triple row of spectators stood round to look on.

Salabert was in his glory. The waif, the beggar, from the market-place of Valencia, was entertaining Royalty. His dull, fish like, dissipated eyes glistened with triumph. This explosion of vanity had blown to the winds all the sordid anxieties which the cost of the ball had caused him—the deadly struggle with his own avarice. To-morrow perhaps the scatered fragments might reunite to give him fresh torment; for the moment, intoxicated with pride, he was drinking deep breaths of the atmosphere of importance and power created by his wealth; his face was flushed with a congestion of ecstatic vanity.

"Only look at Salabert's radiant expression," said Rafael Alcantara to Leon Guzman and some other intimates who were standing in a group. "Joy transpires from every pore! Now is the moment to ask him for a loan of ten thousand dollars."

"Do you think you would get it?"

"Yes, at six per cent., on good security," said the other. "But look, look! Here comes Lola, the most fascinating and delightful creature who has yet entered these rooms." And he raised his voice so as to be heard by the lady in question.

Lola sent him a smile of acknowledgment; and her husband, the Mexican of the cows, who also had heard the remark, bowed with pleasure. She was really very bewitchingly dressed, as a Louis XIV. Marquise, in rose colour, embroidered with gold, and a yellow train, also embroidered. Her hair was powdered, and round her throat was a black velvet ribbon with silver pendants.

When the Royal quadrille was ended, waltzing began. Pepe Castro came to find Esperancita, who was walking with the youngest of the Alcudia girls. It was the first time that they had either of them been present at a ball, and they were perfectly happy as they looked out on the world in its most holiday aspect, confiding their delightful impressions to each other's private ear. He remained with them for a minute till a partner came to claim Paz for the dance, and the two couples floated off at the same time on the tide of waltzers. For Esperancita the world had vanished. A delicious sense of joy and freedom, like that which a bird might feel in flying if it had a soul, glowed in her heart and lapped her in delight. It was the first time she had ever felt Pepe Castro's arm round her waist. Swept away by him into the maËlstrom of couples, she felt as though they were alone—he and she. And the music charmed her ears and heart, giving sweet utterance to the ineffable gladness which throbbed in every pulse.

When they paused a moment to rest, her face so unmistakeably expressed the supreme emotion of first love, that her aunt Clementina, happening to pass on the arm of the President of Congress, could not help looking at her with a half kindly, half mocking smile, which made the child blush. Pepe Castro could scarcely get a word out of her. Delicious excitement seemed to have stricken her dumb. The happiness which filled her soul found an outlet, as so often happens, in a feeling of general benevolence. The ball to her was a pure delight; all the men were amusing; all the women were exquisitely dressed. Even Ramon, who came by, was bedewed with some drops of this overflowing tide of gladness.

"Are you not dancing, Ramon?" she inquired, with so inviting a smile that the poor fellow was quite overcome with joy.

"I have been kept talking by Cotorraso."

"But find yourself a partner. Look, there is Rosa PallarÉs, who is not dancing."

The smiling statesman hastened to invite the damsel in question, thinking, with characteristic acumen, that Esperancita had selected her for her plain face. Soothed by this flattering reflection he was quite content to dance with the daughter of General PallarÉs, of whom Cobo Ramirez was wont to speak as "one of our handsomest scarecrows." He felt as though he were doing his lady's bidding, and giving her indisputable proof that her jealousy—if she were jealous—was unfounded.

When the waltz was over, he returned to her, as a mediÆval knight from the tournay, to receive his guerdon at his mistress's hands. But, inasmuch as there is no perfect happiness for any one in this world, at the same moment Cobo Ramirez went up to Esperancita. They both sat down by her and plied her with compliments and attentions. One took charge of her fan, the other of her handkerchief; both tried to entertain her by their remarks, and to flatter her vanity by their assiduity. It must in truth be owned that if Ramon was the more earnest and solid talker, Cobo was by far the more amusing. And yet Esperancita, against her wont, by one of those unaccountable whims of a young girl, was for once inclined to listen kindly to Ramoncito. The trio afforded a diverting subject for contemplation.

The servants moved about the rooms with trays of lemonade, ices, and bonbons. Ramon called one of them to offer Esperancita a particular kind of jelly which he knew she liked. At the same time he insisted on his rival taking an ice. Cobo declined. Ramon pressed him so eagerly that Alcantara and some other men who were standing near could not help noticing it.

"Look at Ramon trying to make Cobo eat an ice," said one.

"He sees he is hot, and wants to be the death of him! Nothing can be plainer," said Leon.

Pepe Castro, as soon as he saw his partner safe in the hands of Ramirez and Maldonado, had stolen away. As he wandered on he met Clementina. She seemed to be in every place at once, returning every few minutes to attend their Majesties, who had retired to a private room with the Duchess and Requena, and the ladies and gentlemen of their suite.

"I saw you dancing with my little niece," said the lady. "Why do you not make up to her?"

"To what end?"

"To marry her."

"Horror! Why, my dear, what have I done to you that you should wish me so dreadful a fate?"

"Come, come, listen to reason," said she, quite gravely, and assuming a maternal air. "Esperancita is no beauty, but she is not disagreeable looking. She is fresh and youthful, and is desperately in love with you, that I know."

"As you are," interrupted the other, with some bitterness.

"As I am—but then she has not known you some sixteen years. Yes, she loves you, I assure you, very truly. We women can see such things with half a glance. Marry her; do not be foolish. CalderÓn is very rich."

Before Castro could reply, she was gone. He stood there a few minutes lost in thought; then he moved away slowly, making his way round the rooms with a lazy strut, stopping to stare, with consummate impertinence, at all the pretty women, like a Pasha in a slave-market.

Lola had taken possession of Raimundo, and kept him at her side in one corner of the sitting-room, where she laid herself out to conquer him by every art of the coquette. This was the pretty brunette's favourite amusement. No friend of hers could have a man in her train, without Lola's endeavouring to snatch him from her. Handsome or ugly, forward or shy, it mattered not; all she cared for was to gratify her incurable craving for admiration, and her desire to triumph over every other woman. Her eyes had a look of sweetness and innocence which deceived every one; it was impossible to believe that behind those guileless orbs there lurked a will as determined as it was astute. AlcÁzar thought her very pretty, and most agreeable to talk to; but the fact of her being Clementina's friend, and of her talking of scarcely anything else, had a great deal to do with this impression. As he could neither dance nor converse with the lady of his adoration, both for reasons of prudence and because she was too much occupied with other duties, he consoled himself by hearing Lola chatter about the details of her life. Every trifle interested the youth; the dress she had worn at the French Ambassador's ball, the incidents of a shooting-party at the Cotorrasos', the scenes she had with her husband, &c. Lola's tactics were first to gain his attention and captivate his sympathy, and then to win his liking.

When Clementina came into the room, they were deep in conversation. She stood for an instant in the doorway, looking at them with surprise and vexation. For some time past Lola had been out of her good graces. Though Pepe Castro had ceased to interest her, when her friend had attempted to win him from her, the proceeding had led to a certain coolness between them. Now she perceived that Lola had cast her eyes on Raimundo, and was flirting with him on every possible occasion. This roused an impulse of hatred, which she had some difficulty in dissembling. She gave them a fiercely indignant stare, and going into the middle of the room, she said in a somewhat excited way:

"AlcÁzar, you are wanted to dance. Are you too tired?"

"Oh, no!" the young man hastened to reply, and he rose at once. "With whom shall I dance?"

Clementina made no answer. Lola had a satirical smile which exasperated her. She turned to leave the room.

"I am sorry to have disturbed you," she said coldly, as they went away together.

Raimundo looked at her in surprise. This tone was quite new to him.

"Disturbed me? Not at all."

"Yes, indeed; for you seemed to be enjoying yourself very much with your companion," and then, unable to repress her temper any longer, she added in a brusque tone:

"Come with me."

She led him to the dining-room, where the supper tables were laid awaiting the guests. There, in the bay of a window, she poured out her wrath. She loaded him with abuse, and announced definitely that all was at an end between them. She even went so far as to shake him violently by the arm. AlcÁzar was so amazed, so overwhelmed, as to be absolutely incapable of speech. This saved him. Seeing dismay and grief painted on his countenance, Clementina could not fail to perceive that her anger had deceived her. Raimundo, at any rate, had not the faintest notion of flirting. So, calming down a little, she accepted the denial he at last found words to utter.

"But it was solely to talk of you that I sat with her," he said.

"To talk of me? Well, then, for the future, I will trouble you not to talk about me. It is enough that you should love me and hold your tongue."

The servants who were passing in and out glanced at them with significant grimaces.

As they left the room they met Pepa Frias. The buxom widow was in the best of humours; she had received many compliments. Her dress, a very handsome one, cut immoderately low, was that of a foreign princess of the time of Charles III., in silver brocade with gold embroidery, and a blue velvet train.

"My dear, I am as hungry as a wolf," she exclaimed as she came in. "When are we to have supper? Ho, ho! so you are whispering in corners! Prudence, Clementina, prudence! My dear child, I must positively have something to eat or I shall drop. I can wait no longer."

Clementina laughed and took her into a corner, where she had a plate brought for her with some meat. AlcÁzar returned to the drawing-room, very happy, but still tremulous from the painful emotion his mistress had caused him. He had never before seen her in such a rage.

Clementina's friendship with Pepa had been closer than ever since the scene in the boudoir. The widow was convinced that the safety of her fortune depended on this intimacy, and did all she could to consolidate it. Thanks to this manoeuvre she had, in fact, already recovered possession of a large part of it; nor was she now uneasy about the remainder. She knew that DoÑa Carmen had made her will in her step-daughter's favour, and though the Duchess had been rather stronger lately, her death ere long was a certainty, for the doctors had pronounced that nothing could save her but an operation, which she was too weak to undergo.

Pepa's cynical assurance was quite to Clementina's mind. They understood each other perfectly. They were a pair of hussies, grisettes born into a sphere of society for which Nature had never intended them. Pepa, of course, had a better right there than Clementina, who bore the taint in her blood. Pepa was an adventuress by predilection.

"Look here, Clem," said she as she devoured a slice of galantine of turkey. "Let that boy drop; he is not worth his salt. You have had enough of him for a mere whim."

"How do you know what he is worth?" replied Clementina laughing.

"By his face, my dear. He has been your acknowledged lover for above a year, and to this day he turns as red as a poppy whenever you look at him."

"That is exactly what I like him for."

Pepa shrugged her shoulders.

"Indeed? Well, I should find it intolerable."

"And Arbos? How does he behave?"

"Oh, he is a perfect goose, but at any rate he can keep his countenance. If you tell him he is a great man, there is nothing he will not do for you. He has found places for above a score of my connections. Then it is very nice to have some influence in the political world, and see deputies at one's feet. Yesterday, for instance, I had a visit from Manricio Sala, who has set his heart on being made under-secretary. He is quite certain, it would seem, that in that case Urreta would let his daughter marry him."

"Oh, I loathe politics!—Do you know, Irenita is quite sweet in that chasseresse costume."

"Hm—too showy."

"Not at all, it is extremely pretty. What has become of her husband? I have not seen him since they came in."

"Her husband! a precious specimen he is!" exclaimed Pepa, looking up in her wrath. "Oh, what troubles come upon me, my dear, what troubles!" she added with her mouth still full.

"Maria Huerta?" asked Clementina in a confidential tone.

"Who else?" muttered the widow as she gazed at the turkey on her plate. Then suddenly she burst out:

"He is a blackguard, a shameless scoundrel, who cannot even keep up appearances for his wife's sake. He spends chief part of the day waiting for her at the door of the church of San Pascual, and walks home with her. And at the theatre he never takes his eyes off her. It is a shame. He might have some decency. And my idiot of a daughter is madly in love with him, a perfect fool about him, all the while. She does nothing but cry, and show how jealous she is! Why, what does the wretch want but to humiliate her? If I were in her place I would talk to him! And I would give him such a box on the ear to finish with as would make him wink!"

The lady's indignation had not interfered with deglutition.

"Heaven reward you, my dear," she said as she rose. "Now let us see if this heart of mine will be quiet for a little while." For Pepa supposed herself to suffer from a heart complaint which only a good meal would relieve.

A few minutes after they had quitted the dining-room Clementina gave the word, and the supper-room was thrown open. The Royal party led the way, attended by their suite and their host and hostesses. Salabert had lavished his crowning efforts on the supper-room. The ceiling was hung with glittering cloth of gold; the brilliant flowers and exotic fruits, the sheen of silver and crystal, under the blaze of gas lights as numerous as the stars of heaven, were dazzling with splendour. The servants stood motionless in a row against the wall, solemn and speechless. In two deep recesses burnt huge fires of logs, in beautiful fire-places of carved oak, which decorated the wall almost to the ceiling. All the food served at the Royal table had been brought from Paris by a little regiment of cooks and scullions. The only exceptions were fish, brought from the coast of Biscay, and a plum pudding, just arrived from London. The meats were for the most part cold, but there was hot clear soup for those who liked it.

The Royalties did not remain many minutes in the supper-room. As soon as they left, the tide of guests rushed in without much ceremony. The sitting-rooms remained silent, abandoned to the servants, who with the precision of soldiers, replaced the dwindling wax lights by fresh ones, while the noise in the dining-room, of plates and glasses, and voices and laughter, was almost bewildering.

Cobo Ramirez deserted Esperancita for a while, leaving her on his rival's hands, while he found a seat for himself at a little table in a snug corner, to devour a plateful of ham and Hamburg beef. Ramoncito naturally took advantage of this reprieve to show off his own poetical frugality as compared with Cobo's prosaic gluttony, till Esperancita cut the ground from under him by saying very spitefully to her friend Pacita, who sat by her side:

"For my part I like a man to be a great eater."

"So do I," said Paz. "At any rate it shows that he has a good digestion."

"So have I," said Maldonado, crushed and vexed by the hostile tone the young girls had adopted against him. Paz only smiled scornfully.

General PatiÑo, tired of throwing his heavy shell at CalderÓn's torpid spouse without producing the smallest sign of capitulation, had raised the siege, to sit down before the Marquesa de Ujo; she had yielded at the first fire, and thrown open every gate to the enemy. At the same time, as a consummate strategist, the General had not lost sight of Mariana, hoping that some happy accident might again lay her open to his batteries. The newspapers had lately mentioned a rumour that he was to be made Minister of War. This dignity would, no doubt, give him greater influence and prestige, whenever he might choose to surprise the stronghold.

The Marquesa de Ujo was dressed À la Turque, and she played her part so well that Alcantara declared he "longed to have a shot at her himself." Her languor was so great that she could scarcely exert herself to articulate, so that the General was obliged to assist her every minute in the exhausting effort. While her far from perfect teeth nibbled a cake or two—for her digestion did not allow of her eating anything more solid—she uttered, or, to be exact, she exhaled a series of exclamations over a new French novel.

"What exquisite scenes! What a sweet book! When she says, 'Come in if you choose; you can dishonour my body but not my soul.' And the duel, when she receives the bullet that was to have killed her husband! How beautiful it is!"

Pepe Castro was prancing—forgive the word—round Lola Madariaga. She was relating with a malicious smile the incident which had just occurred when Clementina had found her sitting with Raimundo. She spoke as though she had won the youth from her friend, with a scornful and patronising air which would have been a shock to Clementina's pride if she could have heard it.

"Poor Clem! she is growing old, isn't she? But what a figure she has still. Of course it is all done by tight-lacing, and it must do her a mischief, sooner or later, but as yet—— Her face does not match her figure, above all now that she has begun to lose her complexion so dreadfully. She always had a very hard face."

And all the time her insinuating soft eyes were fixed on Castro with such inviting looks, as were really quite embarrassing. She had always been told, and it was true, that she had a most innocent face, and to make the most of it she assumed the expression of an idiot.

Castro agreed to all she said, as much to flatter her as out of any ill-feeling towards Clementina. When Clementina cast him off he had consoled himself by paying attentions to Lola, in whom he really felt no interest, though at the same time he had been careful not to let the world know that he was discarded.

"And do you believe that she is really in love with that school-boy?"

"Who can tell! Clementina likes to be thought original. This last whim is just like her. And look at that baby's sentimental gaze at her from afar."

Raimundo, who was standing at the end of one of the tables, never took his eyes off his mistress while she moved to and fro, attending to the requirements of those guests whom she most desired to please. From time to time she bestowed on him a faint smile of recognition, which transported him to the seventh heaven.

Pepa Frias, who, having had her fill, could eat no more, was picking up a fruit here and a bonbon there, while behind her chair stood CalderÓn, Pinedo, Fuentes, and two or three more, laughing at her and with her. But the widow was not to be caught napping; she could defend herself, parrying and retorting with masterly skill.

"Where do you have the gout, Pepa, did you say?" asked Pinedo.

"In my feet, in my feet, where all your wits are."

"What is the miniature in that brooch? Is it a family portrait?"

"No, Fuentes," said she, as she handed it to him to look at. "It is a mirror."

The painting represented a monkey.

All the others roared with laughter, attracting general attention.

Soon after the dancing had recommenced the Royal party took their leave. The same ceremony was observed as at their arrival; the guests in two ranks on each side of the room, the Royal march played by the orchestra, and the master of the house in attendance to the carriage door.