"If the little Margarita believed Melinza's pretty fable about Habana, and the excellent company there which his wife would enjoy, 'tis no wonder that she made a tangle of her own little web."
"But Doña Orosia, think you he would deal unfairly with me? His words rang so true—even a bad man may love honestly! And if I trifle with the one saving virtue in his heart, will it not be a grievous sin?"
The mocking smile died out of the Spaniard's eyes and left them fathomless and sombre.
I felt as one who—looking into an open window, and seeing the light of a taper glancing and flickering within—draws back abashed, when suddenly the flame is quenched, and only the hollow dark stares back at his blinded gaze.
"If he loves you," she said slowly, "it is but as he has loved before, more times than one. He would skim the cream of passion, brush the dew from the flower, crush the first sweetness from the myrtle-blooms,—and leave the rest. You child, what do you know of men? It is only the unattainable that is worth striving for. There is much of the brute beast in their passions. Did you mark, the other day, how the dead hound turned a scornful nozzle to the first sweet morsel that I pressed on his acceptance? But afterward, the fear of losing it made him eager to the leaping-point. Just so I shall trick his master—shall let him see thee, almost grasp and taste; then, when the moment of mad longing comes, I'll stab him with the final loss of thee! Only so can I arouse a desire that will outlive a day; for I know men's hearts to the core, thou blue-eyed babe!"
"Señora," I cried, stung by her scornful words, "I cannot say I know men's hearts; but I do know the heart of one true gentleman; and I believe, when he had won from me the betrothal kiss, I was not less desirable in his eyes!"
"So you believe," she said, and shook her head. "Bueno, go on believing—while you can. Woman's faith in man's fealty lives just so long——" and she bent forward from her couch, plucked a fragile blossom from the swaying vines, and cast it under foot.
I would have spoken again of my trust in the leal true heart that trusted me; but I saw the trembling of the laces on her bosom, I saw the dark eyes growing more angerful, and a slow crimson rising in the rich cheek. She was always "studying her revenge,"—this beautiful, unhappy woman, "keeping her wounds green which otherwise might heal and do well."
As I watched her a great pity overcame me, so that I held my peace.