"Do not come near me, wicked, ungrateful child!" repeated the Duke, in a quavering voice, but with melodramatic emphasis.
"Yes, leave this house, shameless creature," added the woman, encouraged by the old man's attitude. "Dare you show your face here, after treating your father so?"
Clementina stood petrified, colourless, staring at them with a look of terror rather than anger. For an instant she was on the point of fainting away; everything seemed to be whirling round her. But her pride enabled her to make a supreme effort; she stood rooted to the spot, and incapable of moving, as white as a marble statue. Then she turned on her heel slowly, for fear of falling, and reached the stairs, down which she went, almost tottering at each step. Her father, spurred by Amparo's cries, followed her to the top of the flight, repeating with increasing fury:
"Go—go. Leave my house!" And he held up a tremulous hand in theatrical menace.
His mistress, meanwhile, poured forth a string of abuse with an accompaniment of gestures, sarcastic laughter and gibes, learnt and remembered from her early experience.
By the time Clementina had reached the garden, her cheeks were tingling. She leaned against the pedestal of one of the lamps for a minute to recover herself, and then ran like a mad creature to the gate, where her carriage was waiting; she sprang into it and burst into tears. On reaching home she was lifted out in a miserable state, and helped up to her room by two maids. When Osorio came up, it was only in broken and incoherent sentences that she could tell him what had occurred.
She kept her bed for eight or ten days in a state of utter prostration, and she rose from it at last so possessed by the desire for revenge, that she really seemed to have gone mad.
The lawsuit, under the hot breath of her malice, was fanned to an imposing blaze. It was regarded in Madrid as a matter of public interest. The opinions of the most distinguished physicians, Spanish and foreign, were taken on both sides as to the Duke's mental incapacity. On one part he was pronounced an idiot, so hopelessly childish that there was nothing to be done with him; on the other it was asserted that he was mending steadily, his mind clearer every day, and his intellect a marvel of acumen and sound sense. And on one point all the authorities concurred—namely, in requiring enormous fees. The press took sides with one or the other party. Clementina subsidised one or two papers. Amparo had bribed others, for the Duke, as a matter of fact, was incompetent to direct the case. And through their columns the two women, more or less disguised, contrived to hurl insolence at one another, reviving, in an allegorical dress, an extensive selection of scandalous tales.
In this warfare the daughter had the worst chance. She could not be so liberal as the mistress, who sowed bank-notes broadcast. On the other hand, Clementina had the support of her husband's creditors, and of her friend Pepa Frias—who was indefatigable in her visits to the doctors, the lawyers, and the newspaper editors—the Condesa de Cotorraso, the Marquesa de Alcudia, her brother-in-law, Calderón, General Patiño and Jimenez Arbos; and, more helpful than all these, as in duty bound, her lover en titre, Escosura. He, holding a post of high importance, had no small influence on the course of the lawsuit.
What a life of excitement, anxiety, and misery! Clementina could not eat, she could not sleep. She was always holding conferences with lawyers and judges, always writing letters. Even at her parties and dinners, nothing else was talked about, till at length the more indifferent of her acquaintance rebelled, and ceased to come. To others, however, she communicated some of her own flame; they became her ardent partisans, and brought or carried reports, volunteered advice, broke out in cries of indignation whenever Amparo was even mentioned. And although Clementina's haughty temper prevented her being a favourite in Madrid society, as she stood forth, after all, as the representative of justice and decency, her cause found most supporters. To this her antagonist's folly contributed, for she paraded herself and her splendour everywhere, with the imbecile and degraded old man.