“What other woman? Yourself?” asked Castell, fixing on this last point in the programme.
“No, Señor, not for all the wealth of both of you. To your dependent and your daughter’s relative, the handsome Betty.”
“How will you manage that?” exclaimed Castell, amazed.
“These cousins are not unlike, Señor, although the link of blood between them is so thin. Listen now, I will tell you.” And she explained the outlines of her plan.
“A bold scheme enough,” said Castell, when she had finished, “but even if it can be done, would that marriage hold?”
“I think so,” answered Inez, “if the priest knew—and he could be bribed—and the bride knows. But if not, what would it matter, since Rome alone can decide the question, and long before that is done the fates of all of us will be settled.”
“Rome—or death,” said Castell; and Inez read what he was afraid of in his eyes.
“Your Betty takes her chance,” she replied slowly, “as many a one has done before her with less cause. She is a woman with a mind as strong as her body. Morella made her love him and promised to marry her. Then he used her to steal your daughter, and she learned that she had been no more than a stalking-heifer, from behind which he would net the white swan. Do you not think, therefore, that she has something to pay him back, she through whom her beloved mistress and cousin has been brought into all this trouble? If she wins, she becomes the wife of a grandee of Spain, a marchioness; and if she loses, well, she has had her fling for a high stake, and perhaps her revenge. At least she is willing to take her chance, and, meanwhile, all of you can be gone.”
Castell looked doubtfully at the Jew Israel, who stroked his white beard and said:
“Let the woman set out her scheme. At any rate she is no fool, and it is worth our hearing, though I fear that at the best it must be costly.”