The whole, deified by the grand soul that shines out from the lovely face, backgrounded by and floating upon sun rays, and full of those wondrous effects of golden light and deep warm shadow peculiar to the school of the Venetian Tintoretto, makes Guy very eager; for it is the breathing, speaking portrait of the woman he loves, yet still is not equal to her.
For this is but one view of her mobile loveliness, and the night before she had given him a different effect, a varied expression, a new rapture, each time he had gazed upon her changing, vivacious, yet always noble beauty.
He cries impatiently to the painter: “You don’t answer my question. You only show me what makes me more hungry for her name. Tell me who she is?”
The answer that comes startles him, dismays him. “She is,” says Oliver, sighing his words, “the only thing upon this earth that Alva loves!”
“No, no, I’ll not believe,” gasps Chester.
“You must! She is the only thing he adores, the only being to whom the Viceroy of Spain ever gives the loving ‘thou’.”
“I can’t believe you,” cries the Englishman, clenching [[59]]his hands in agony. “She is too pure to be the love of any one, least of all of that fiend.”
“She is not too pure,” says the painter slowly, “to be his daughter.”
“His DAUGHTER? Saints above us!”
“Yes, Hermoine de Alva is the Duke’s natural daughter. Her mother, the Countess di Perugia, an Italian lady, of great beauty, died four years ago. Since then the Duke has given Doña Hermoine his own name. She is the purest, sweetest, noblest flower that Spain has ever sent to the Netherlands. Her mind is as bright, her intellect as strong, as her father’s, but her heart is as tender as his is cruel. Still, she is the daughter of Alva, and as such, my Englishman, I fear your love is hopeless! Beware! Your brother loved a Spanish girl!”