“Santissima!” exclaimed her friend, alike surprised at the remark as at its abruptness. “Why do you wish that Ysabel?”
“Because I think I know a way by which something might be done—if you were but the woman to do it.”
“Oh, Ysabelita! I will do anything to get Florencio out of prison.”
“It isn’t Florencio I want you to get out, but Ruperto. Leave the getting out of Florencio to me.”
Still more astonished was Don Ignacio’s daughter. What could the countess mean now? She put the question to her thus—
“What is it you desire me to do?”
“Practise a little deception—play the coquette—that’s all.”
It was not in Luisa Valverde’s nature. If she had many admirers, and she had—some of them over head and ears in love with her—it was from no frivolity, or encouragement given them, on her part. From the day Florence Kearney first made impression upon her heart, it had been true to him, and she loyal throughout all. So much that people thought her cold, some even pronouncing her a prude. They knew not how warmly that heart beat, though it was but for one. Thinking of this one, however, what the countess proposed gave her a shock, which the latter perceiving, added, with a laugh—
“Only for a time, amiga mia. I don’t want you to keep it up till you’ve got a naughty name. Nor to make fools of all the fine gentlemen I see dangling around you. Only one.”
“Which one?”