"To this—that at Santiago de Chile, and afterwards at Salto, Señor Don Zeno Cabral—that is his name, I think?"
"Yes, that is his name; well?"
"When he came to our house, did you then know this hatred that he bears us?"
"I knew it, my girl," briefly answered the marchioness.
"You knew it, mother!" cried Doña Eva, with surprise.
"Yes, I knew it, I repeat."
"But then, mother, if that were the case, why receive him on the footing of intimacy, when it would have been so easy for you to have closed the door to him!"
"Do you think that would have been possible for me?"
"Forgive this persistence, mother; but I cannot explain to myself such conduct on your part. You, endowed as you are with such exquisite tact, and so deep a knowledge of the world!"
The marchioness slightly shrugged her shoulders, while a smile of an indefinable expression played round her mouth.