"To you, nothing; it is true, Phoebe, as it is not for you that I have come, but for your mistress."
"At this hour?"
"Why not?"
"Because doña Laura—fatigued, as it appears, by the long journey that she has been obliged to make today—has retired, ordering me not to allow anyone to come near her."
A feverish flush suffused the countenance of the marquis; he knitted his eyebrows so as to make them meet; but considering, no doubt, the ridiculousness of a scene with a slave who was only acting according to orders, he soon mastered himself.
"Well," said he, intentionally slightly raising his voice, "your mistress is free in her own house to act in her own way; only, this interview, which for some days she has refused me with such obstinacy, I shall know how to compel her to accord to me."
Scarcely had he pronounced these words, when a curtain was drawn aside, and doña Laura entered the room.
"You threaten me, I think, Don Roque de Castelmelhor," said she, in a sharp and loud voice. "Retire, Phoebe," added she; "but only go so far as you may be able to come to me immediately."
Phoebe bowed her head, cast a last look at the marquis, and left the room.
"Now, Señor caballero," pursued doña Laura, "since the slave has retired, speak; I will listen to you."