‘You must excuse me,’ said Madame Barenna volubly, ‘but your approach was so sudden. I am a great sufferer—my nerves, you know. But young people do not understand.’
And she sighed heavily, with a side glance at her daughter, who did not even appear to be trying to do so. Julia Barenna was darker than her cousin, quicker in manner, with an air of worldly capability which Estella lacked. Her eyes were quick and restless, her face less beautiful, but expressive of a great intelligence, which, if brought to bear upon men in the form of coquetry, was likely to be infinitely dangerous.
‘It is always best to approach my mother with caution,’ she said with a restless movement of her hands. This was not a woman at her ease in the world or at peace with it. She laughed as she spoke, but her eyes were grave, even while her lips smiled, and watched the Englishman’s face with an air almost of anxiety. There are some faces that seem to be watching and waiting. Julia Barenna’s had such a look.
‘Conyngham,’ said Madame Barenna reflectively. ‘Surely I have heard that name before. You are not the Englishman with whom Father Concha is so angry—who sells forbidden books—the Bible, it is said?’
‘No, señora,’ answered Conyngham with perfect gravity; ‘I have nothing to sell.’
He laughed suddenly, and looked at the elder lady with that air of good humour which won for him more friends than he ever wanted; for this Irishman had a ray of sunshine in his heart which shone upon his path through life, and made that uneven way easier for his feet. He glanced at Julia, and saw in her eyes the look of expectancy which was, in reality, always there. The thought flashed through his mind that by some means, or perhaps feminine intuition beyond his comprehension, she knew that he possessed the letter addressed to her, and was eagerly awaiting it. This letter seemed to have been gaining in importance the longer he carried it, and this opportunity of giving it to her came at the right moment. He remembered Larralde’s words concerning the person to whom the missive was addressed, and the high-flown sentiments of that somewhat theatrical gentleman became in some degree justified. Julia Barenna was a woman who might well awaken a passionate love. Conyngham realised this, as from a distance, while Julia’s mother spoke of some trivial matter of the moment to unheeding ears. That distance seemed now to exist between him and all women. It had come suddenly, and one glance of Estella’s eyes had called it into existence.
‘Yes,’ Señora Barenna was saying, ‘Father Concha is very angry with the English. What a terrible man! You do not know him, Señor Conyngham?’
‘I think I have met him, señora.’
‘Ah, but you have never seen him angry. You have never confessed to him! A little, little sin—no larger than the eye of a fly—a little bite of a calf’s sweetbread on Friday in mere forgetfulness, and Sancta Maria! what a penance is required! What suffering! It is a purgatory to have such a confessor.’
‘Surely madame can have no sins,’ said Conyngham pleasantly.