Llera, after looking him straight in the face, bent his head without replying.
"And you others, do you know anything about it? Heh, do you know anything whatever?"
The clerks in the same way stared at him; then they looked at Llera, and they too bent their heads and stood speechless.
Salabert, with well-feigned fury, eyed them all in turn, and at length addressing his visitors:
"You see," he said; "no one answers. The guilty man, or men, lurk among them; for I suspect that more than one must be concerned. Do not be afraid, I will give them a lesson, a terrible lesson. I will not rest till I have them before the judge. Go," he added, to the delinquents, "and those of you who are guilty may well quake. Justice will soon overtake you."
To judge by the absolute indifference with which this fulmination was received, the criminals must have been hardened indeed. Each man went back to his place and his work as though the sword of Nemesis were not drawn to cut his throat.
The bankers were half amused and half angry. At last one of the quartette, biting his lips for fear of laughing outright, held out his hand with a contemptuous gesture, saying:
"Good-bye, Salabert—au revoir."
The others followed his example without another word about the business which had brought them. The Duke was not at all disconcerted; he politely saw them to the head of the stairs, firing wrathful lightnings at his clerks as he led his visitors through the office. On his return he took not the slightest notice of the men; he walked down the room like an actor crossing behind the scenes as he comes off the stage.
Soon after this performance he went downstairs himself, to go to his wife's room. He found her alone, reading a book of devotions. Doña Carmen, who had always been pious, had of late given herself up almost exclusively to religious exercises. Her failing strength cut her off more and more from the outer world, and left her sadly submissive to the priests who visited her. Salabert had never opposed this taste for devotion; he regarded it with pitying indifference, as an innocent mania. However, just lately, some rather large bounties of Doña Carmen's had alarmed him, and he had felt obliged to give her a paternal lecture. He was accustomed to find her submissive, unambitious, absolutely indifferent to the result of his various speculations; he treated her as a child, if not as a faithful dog, whose head he might now and then pat kindly. The hapless woman never had interfered in his life, his toil, or his vices. Though his mistresses and fearful extravagance were discussed by all the rest of the world, Doña Carmen knew nothing of them, or ignored them. Nevertheless, the Duke's last connection with Amparo had distressed her more than any former one. This arrogant but low creature delighted in annoying the Duchess in every possible way, which was what none of her predecessors had done. If she went out driving with her husband, Amparo would keep pace in her carriage and exchange significant glances with Requena. When the good lady gently complained of such conduct, Salabert would simply deny, not merely his smiles and ogling, but all acquaintance with the woman: he only knew her by sight, he had never spoken to her in his life. It was the same at the Opera; Amparo would stare all the evening at the Duke's box. At bull-fights and at races she made a display of reckless luxury which attracted general attention. Certain well-intentioned friends, in their compassion for Doña Carmen, kept her informed as to the enormous sums this woman was costing the Duke by her extravagance and caprices. These constant vexations, endured unconfessed to any one but her director, had told on the lady's health, reducing her to a state of weakness which made it seem a miracle that she was still alive. Salabert had something else to do than to consider her sufferings. He thought that with the title of Duchess, and such enormous wealth, in so splendid a house, Doña Carmen ought to be the happiest woman on earth.