"No—no—no—Señora," again murmured Mercedes, clinging convulsively to the queen's knees. "Your Highness hath wounded no one—would wound no one—can wound no one—you are all gracious goodness and thoughtfulness."
"Beatriz, I look to thee for the explanation! Hath aught justifiable occurred to warrant this change of feeling?"
"I fear, dearest Señora, that the feelings continue too much as formerly, and that the change is not in this young and unpractised heart, but in the fickle inclinations of man."
A flash of womanly indignation darted from the usually serene eyes of the queen, and her form assumed all of its native majesty.
"Can this be true?" she exclaimed. "Would a subject of Castile dare thus to trifle with his sovereign—thus to trifle with one sweet and pure as this girl—thus to trifle with his faith with God! If the reckless Conde thinketh to do these acts of wrongfulness with impunity, let him look to it! Shall I punish him that merely depriveth his neighbor of some paltry piece of silver, and let him escape who woundeth the soul? I wonder at thy calmness, Daughter-Marchioness; thou, who art so wont to let an honest indignation speak out in the just language of a fearless and honest spirit!"
"Alas! Señora, my beloved mistress, my feelings have had vent already, and nature will no more. This boy, moreover, is my brother's son, and when I would fain arouse a resentment against him, such as befitteth his offence, the image of that dear brother, whose very picture he is, hath arisen to my mind in a way to weaken all its energy."
"This is most unusual! A creature so fair—so young—so noble—so rich—every way so excellent, to be so soon forgotten! Canst thou account for it by any wandering inclination, Lady of Moya?"
Isabella spoke musingly, and, as one of her high rank is apt to overlook minor considerations, when the feelings are strongly excited, she did not remember that Mercedes was a listener. The convulsive shudder that again shook the frame of our heroine, however, did not fail to remind her of this fact, and the queen could not have pressed the Princess Juana more fondly to her heart, than she now drew the yielding form of our heroine.
"What would you, Señora?" returned the marchioness, bitterly. "Luis, thoughtless and unprincipled boy as he is, hath induced a youthful Indian princess to abandon home and friends, under the pretence of swelling the triumph of the admiral, but really, in obedience to a wandering fancy, and in submission to those evil caprices, that make men what, in sooth, they are, and which so often render unhappy women their dupes and their victims."
"An Indian princess, say'st thou? The admiral made one of that rank known to us, but she was already a wife, and far from being one to rival Doña Mercedes of Valverde."