Naturally the Count had not succeeded in finding this fancied rival, who only existed in his own imagination, and this had grown into a jealousy, the more ferocious because, as it did not know whom to settle on, it attacked everybody.
The Count was jealous, then, not like a Spaniard, for the Spaniards generally, whatever may be said to the contrary, are not affected by that stupid malady, but like an Italian; and this jealousy made him suffer the more, because, like his love, he was unable to show it; through fear of ridicule, he was compelled to lock it up carefully in his heart.
When, owing to his protection—as had been arranged on his marriage with Doña Clara, of whose previous union with the Count de Barmont he was ignorant—his father-in-law, the Duc de Peñaflor, was appointed viceroy of New Spain, and himself obtained the government of Hispaniola, the Count experienced a feeling of indescribable joy, and an immense comfort inundated his mind. He was persuaded that in America, his wife, separated from her friends and relatives, forced, to live alone, and consequently to undergo his influence, would be driven through weariness and want of something better to do, to share his love, or at least accept it: and then again, on the islands there was no rivalry to fear among a half savage population entirely absorbed by a passion far more powerful than love—a passion for money.
Alas! This time too, he was deceived. Doña Clara, it is true, gave him no more pretext for jealousy than she had done in Spain, but he did not any the more succeed in winning her affections. From the first day of her arrival at Saint Domingo, she manifested the desire to live alone and in retirement, engaged in religious practices; and the Count was constrained, in spite of his fury, to bow before a resolution which he recognised as irrevocable.
He resigned himself; his jealousy however was not extinct, it was smouldering beneath the ashes, and a spark would suffice to make it burst into a more terrible flame than before.
Still, in spite of this slight annoyance, the life the Count led at Saint Domingo was most agreeable; in the first place he ruled there in his quality of governor, saw everybody bend beneath his will, always excepting his wife, the only one perhaps he would have cared to reduce. He had his flatterers, and played the master and suzerain over all who surrounded him; moreover, a thing not to be at all despised, his position as governor secured certain imposts that rapidly augmented his fortune, which various youthful follies had considerably reduced, and he now worked hard, not only to repair the breaches, but to render them as if they had never been.
By degrees, however, the Count succeeded in lulling, if not subduing, his love; he employed one passion to uproot the other; the care of augmenting his fortune made him endure patiently the calculated indifference of the Countess. He had almost come himself to believe that he only felt for her a frank and sincere friendship; the more so because Doña Clara for her part, was charming in everything that did not touch on her husband's passion for her; she took an interest, or at least pretended to do so, in the commercial speculations which the Count did not hesitate to engage in under suppositious names, and at times she would give him, with that clear judgment so eminently possessed by women whose heart is free, excellent advice on very difficult points, by which the Count profited, and naturally took all the glory.
Things were in this state when the episode with the filibusters occurred, which the Major-domo described to Don Sancho de Peñaflor.
This mad struggle of five men against an entire town, a struggle from which they emerged victorious, had caused the Count a rage all the greater, because the filibusters, on leaving the town, had taken the Countess off with them as a hostage. He had then understood how greatly he erred, in supposing that his love and jealousy were extinguished. During the two hours that the Countess remained absent, the Count suffered a horrible torture, the more horrible because the rage he felt was impotent, and vengeance impossible, at least for the present.
Hence, from this moment, the Count vowed an implacable hatred against the adventurers, and swore to carry on a merciless war against them.