"Well then—well then, I want you to kill my husband."
"How barbarous!" he exclaimed in dismay, opening his eyes very wide.
The lady looked at him steadily for a few minutes with scrutinising, sarcastic eyes. Then with a sharp laugh, she exclaimed:
"You see, miserable man, you see! You are a fine gentleman of Madrid, a member of the Savage Club. Neither for me nor any other woman would you exchange your dress-coat and white waistcoat for a prison uniform."
"You have such strange ideas."
"Well, well. Go on in the way which your pusillanimous nature points out to you, and do not get into mischief. You will understand that I only spoke in jest; but it has confirmed me in the opinion I had already formed."
"But if you have so poor an opinion of my devotion, I do not know why you should love me," said the young man, again somewhat piqued.
"Why I love you? For the same reason for which I do everything—Caprice. I saw you one day in the Park of the Retiro, breaking in a horse splendidly, and I took a fancy to you. Then, two months later, I saw you at the fencing gallery at Biarritz, crossing foils with a Russian, and that finally bewitched me. I got you introduced to me, I did my best to please you—I did in fact please you—and here we are."
Pepe made up his mind to endure with patience her half cynical tone of raillery, and by dint of talking she presently dropped it. Clementina when she was content, was affectionate and gay, and ready to yield to impulses of generosity; her face, as singular as it was beautiful, never indeed softened to sweetness, but it had a kind, maternal expression which was very attractive. But if her nerves were irritated, and her opinions or wishes were crossed, the under-current of pride, obstinacy and even cruelty, which lay beneath, came to the surface, and her blue eyes shot flashes of fierce sarcasm or fury.
Pepe Castro, who was neither illustrious nor clever, had nevertheless the art of amusing her with the gossip of society, and innuendoes against those persons for whom she had a marked antipathy. The means were coarse but the effect was excellent. The Condesa de T——, a lady whom Clementina hated mortally for some displeasure she had once done her, was desperately hard up; she had gone to borrow of Z—— the old banker, who had granted the loan, but at a percentage which had made the lady stare. The Marqués de L——, and his wife, for whom also she had an aversion, had, before he was in office, given entertainments to the electors at their country house, with splendid banquets; but as soon as he was made Minister, though they still gave parties there was no buffet. Julita R——, a very pretty girl who, again, was no favourite with the haughty lady, had been turned out of doors by the M—— s for having been found in their son's room—a lad of fifteen. This and much more of the same kind fell from the lips of the generous youth, with a scornful humour which put the fair one into a better temper. This was Pepe Castro's sole talent of an intellectual character; his other accomplishments were purely physical.