But when of a sudden, as he did again and again, he sprang some question on her about Morella, or Margaret, or John Castell, that same subtle change would come over her face, and the same silence would seal her lips.
“Señor,” she said to him one day with a laugh, “you ask me of secrets which I might reveal to you—perhaps—if you were my husband or my love, but which you cannot expect a nurse, whose life hangs on it, to answer. Not that I wish you to become my husband or my lover,” she added, with a little nervous laugh.
Peter looked at her with his grave eyes.
“I know that you do not wish that,” he said, “for how could I attract one so gay and beautiful as you are?”
“You seem to attract the English Margaret,” she replied quickly in a nettled voice.
“To have attracted, you mean, as you tell me that she is dead,” he answered; and, seeing her mistake, Inez bit her lip. “But,” he went on, “I was going to add, though it may have no value for you, that you have attracted me as your true friend.”
“Friend!” she said, opening her large eyes, “what talk is this? Can the woman Inez find a friend in a man who is under sixty?”
“It would appear so,” he answered. And again with that graceful little curtsey of hers she went away, leaving him very puzzled. Two days later she appeared in his room, evidently much disturbed.
“I thought that you had left me altogether, and I am glad to see you, for I tire of that deaf Moor and of this fine room. I want fresh air.”
“I know it,” she answered; “so I have come to take you to walk in a garden.”