To the house of their friend, in consequence, they went; and the beautiful stranger, with her broken English, sweetly spoken Portuguese, and most romantic story, soon commanded universal attention.
Towards the middle of the evening a rapidly approaching carriage, followed by a thundering rap, announced the arrival of some new guest.
“That is Azavédo,” observed one, “I know him by the sound of his four horses. A strange fancy that, always sporting a carriage and four, when in everything else he has no pretension whatever. Did you expect him, Cordoza?” he asked of his host.
“He said he might look in on his way to Epping,” was the reply.
“What a changed man he is,” said another; “I remember when he literally loathed society, and shrunk from beauty, male or female, as if it stung him by the contrast with himself.”
“I have never heard him admire a woman yet though,” rejoined the first speaker. “I wonder if he will notice the beauty of to-night?”
Azavédo entered as he spoke, and, after addressing his host and hostess, began an earnest conversation with a friend near them.
A low, musical laugh from the centre of a merry group at the opposite end of the large drawing-room caused Azavédo suddenly so to start, with such an indescribable change of countenance, as to impel the anxious query whether he were ill. He answered hurriedly in the negative, but his friend perceiving his eye fixed on the group, eagerly entered on the story of the stranger, from whom the laugh had come, inviting him to join the circle round her. Somewhat hesitatingly he did so. Inez, in compliance with the customs of her own country, still wore her veil, which, in answer to the inquiry of some one near her as to the different fashions of wearing it in Portugal, she had drawn so closely round her as to hide every feature.
“Tell her that it is not the custom of English ladies to wear veils,” whispered Azavédo to his hostess, in tones of such strong and most unusual excitement, that she looked at him as if in doubt of his identity. His hint was acted upon, however, and Inez, with winning courtesy, soon after laid aside her veil.
Azavédo had become in some degree a man of the world, and it was well he was, or he might have found it difficult so to suppress inward emotion as to conceal it from those around him. He looked once more on the being who for four long years had in secret so occupied his heart, as never to permit the entrance of another image, or the faintest thought of another love. She was there, not only yet more radiant in finished loveliness than when he had first beheld her, but free, and of his own race and creed. And so exquisite were the feelings of the moment, that he feared to be introduced, lest her first glance upon his face, if it revealed the horror that he believed it would, should sentence him to misery.