"How do you know she was pretty?" asked Donna Dolores, quickly.
"I presume so. It is the privilege of orphanage," he said, with a bow of cold gallantry.
"You are wise, Don Arturo. May you live a thousand years."
This time it was impossible but Arthur should notice the irony of Donna Dolores's manner. All his strong combative instincts rose. The mysterious power of her beauty, which he could not help acknowledging, her tone of superiority, whether attributable to a consciousness of this power over him, or some knowledge of his past—all aroused his cold pride. He remembered the reputation that Donna Dolores bore as a religious devotee and rigid moralist. If he had been taxed with his abandonment of Grace, with his half-formed designs upon Mrs. Sepulvida, he would have coldly admitted them without excuse or argument. In doing so, he would have been perfectly conscious that he should lose the esteem of Donna Dolores, of whose value he had become, within the last few moments, equally conscious. But it was a part of this young man's singular nature that he would have experienced a certain self-satisfaction in the act, that would have outweighed all other considerations. In the ethics of his own consciousness he called this "being true to himself." In a certain sense he was right.
He rose, and, standing respectfully before his fair client, said—
"Have you decided fully? Do I understand that I am to press this claim with a view of ousting these parties? or will you leave them for the present in undisturbed possession of the land?"
"But what do you say?" continued Donna Dolores, with her eyes fixed upon his face.
"I have said already," returned Arthur, with a patient smile. "Morally and legally, my advice is to press the claim!"
Donna Dolores turned her eyes away with the slightest shade of annoyance.
"Bueno! We shall see. There is time enough. Be seated, Don Arturo. What is this? Surely you will not refuse our hospitality to-night?"