"A slave!" repeated Doña Beatriz, almost with a cry. "Now Heaven help us, Don Juan; are you mad? You, of noblest lineage--you, Alvarez de Meñaya--to call your own first-born a slave!"
"I call any one a slave who dares not speak out what he thinks, and act out what he believes," returned Don Juan sadly.
"And what is it that you would do then?"
"Would to God that I knew! But the future is all dark to me. I see not a single step before me."
"Then, amigo mio, do not look before you. Let the future alone, and enjoy the present, as I do."
"Truly that baby face would charm many a care away," said Juan, with another fond glance at the sleeping child. "But a man must look before him, and a Christian man must ask what God would have him to do. Moreover, this letter of the duke demands an answer, Yea or Nay."
"Señor Don Juan, I desire to speak with your Excellency," said the voice of Dolores at the door.
"Come in, Dolores."
"Nay, señor, I want you here." This peremptory sharpness was very unlike the wonted manner of Dolores.
Don Juan came forth immediately. Dolores signed to him to shut the door. Then, not till then, she began,--"Señor Don Juan, two brethren of the Society of Jesus have come from Seville, and are now in the village."