The young man began protesting, but don Andrés once more interrupted him.
"I am an old fool," he said. "I am keeping you here, listening to my maundering, and forget that you have had a long ride, and must need rest. Come, I wish to have the pleasure of conducting you myself to your apartments, which have been ready for you for some days past."
"My dear cousin," the count answered; "I thank you a thousand times for your kind attention; but I think it would be only polite for you to introduce me to doña Dolores, ere I retire."
"There is no hurry for that, my dear Count: my daughter is at this moment shut up in her boudoir with her women. Let me announce you first, for I know better than you what is proper under the circumstances,—and go and rest yourself."
"Very well, my cousin; I will follow you. I will indeed confess, since you are so good as to place me so thoroughly at my ease, that I shall not be at all sorry to take a few hours' rest."
"Did I not know it?" don Andrés replied, gaily; "But all young people are the same—they doubt nothing."
The hacendero thereupon led his guest to the apartments which had been tastefully prepared and furnished under the immediate inspection of don Andrés, and were intended to serve as the count's abode during the whole of the period he might be pleased to spend at the hacienda.
The suite of rooms, though not large, was arranged in a very sensible and comfortable manner, considering the resources of the country.
It consisted of four rooms. The count's bedroom, with dressing room and bathroom attached, a study, serving as a drawing room, an antechamber, and a room for the count's valets; so that he might have them within call by day and night.
By means of a few partitions, the suite bad been separated from and rendered entirely independent of the other apartments in the hacienda. It was entered by three doors, one opening on the vestibule, the second into the common court yard, and the third leading by a flight of steps to the magnificent huerta, which, through its extent, might pass for a park.