The count could not regain his equanimity.
When Fernanda arrived, and, with visible displeasure, asked him for her clove, he was in a very awkward position. The gardener's little boy was said to have pulled it from him when he stooped to kiss him, and so he had taken another from his mother's room. But Amalia, who was implacable, made matters worse by saying in a loud voice with a malicious smile:
"Who gave you that beautiful clove? Fernanda?"
"No, no," he hastily replied.
And then the count, quite red and upset, had to proceed to give in a loud voice the explanation he had been giving in an undertone to Fernanda. That little act of treason was a bond between them; it established a peculiar relation which the count did not dare to define in his thoughts, for he trembled as though an abyss yawned at his feet. He continued paying attention to the heiress of Estrada-Rosa with the same, if not more, assiduity, but he could never talk with the Señora of Quiñones without feeling agitated; her glances were long and earnest, the pressure of her hand was full of affection, and yet they both acted before Fernanda as if she were already his affianced wife. And yet they had not uttered a word of love! But Luis knew he was not treating the lady he was courting fairly, and that he was acting criminally with regard to Don Pedro, his friend. He did not know how, or why, but his conscience told him that he was. Sometimes he tried to persuade himself that he had not taken one step in the direction of crime, that he was involved in a train of circumstances in which love, intelligence, treason, all played a part without one's knowing how it had happened.
More than a month passed by in this way. Amalia not only discoursed to him of love with her eyes, but she made him carry out all her most capricious fancies whilst sometimes sharply calling him to task.
If, for example, he caught a glance from Amalia when he was going for a walk telling him to stay, he would stay. If he was about to dance with Fernanda, a severe look would prevent him doing so.
One day he announced his intention of going for six or eight days to his property in Onis; but Amalia made a negative sign with her head, and he gave up the idea. What right had she thus to cross his wishes and direct his line of conduct? He did not know, but he felt very pleased to obey her. He lived in a state of pleasant, exciting unrest, sometimes hoping for something so ineffably delightful, that he hardly dared to formulate it even to himself.
In the meanwhile she quietly watched him with her sphinx-like smile, strong in the conviction that the something would happen when the time was ripe.
One afternoon in June the count was at The Grange inspecting the operations of some workmen he was employing in opening a wider aqueduct for the mill, when the boy who minded the cattle, came to tell him that a lady wanted him.