Surprise and thankfulness, or perhaps a suddenly awakened covetousness for a time killed in her every other feeling. Felix revelled in a few weeks of mad happiness.
To-day, however, his hair stood on end when he thought of this happiness.
Juanita gave herself up to mad extravagance. Her ideal of elegance and style was Mlle. X----, the première danseuse of the opera house. Juanita must have duplicates of everything: the toilets, the Newfoundland and the equipages. Finally she insisted upon dancing at the same theatre as the X----, and Felix succeeded in securing a performance for her.
And yet how badly she treated him in spite of everything. Often he rattled his frail chains, but lacked the strength to break them. He made scenes for Juanita almost every day--it was owing to his jealousy; he left her and swore he would never come again. For an entire week he remained away from her, but in what a condition of excitement, fever, and longing! He ate nothing, he slept no longer, he ran into passers-by in the street because he saw no one; the whole world was a dark chaos to him--the only spot of light was Juanita.
With bowed head, a bitter smile on his lips, the full consciousness of his degradation expressed by bearing and glance, he then dragged himself back to Juanita.
She did with him what she wished. All Vienna spoke about him and her; from the lips of young matrons mysterious phrases floated about the ears of innocent young girls--the pretty Countess L---- cried her blue eyes out.
And the summer passed. September arrived. The Spaniard had become more submissive--sometimes she was almost tender. The great moment of her début in the opera house approached, and made her timid. One more wish she expressed, a last one. Never before had she taken trouble to inform Felix of one of her expensive wishes with so many caressing digressions. With both arms round his neck, her lips close to his ear, she informed him that she would not appear at the opera house without a pair of diamond screws such as Mlle. X---- always wore in her ears when she danced.
When he begged her only to wait a very little while, she fell back into her old phlegmatic, yes, apathetic manner, pouting angrily.
He went to a jeweller whom he knew, of whom he had already purchased different ornaments for Juanita, but the man did not seem inclined to extend Felix's credit further. Too prudent to bluntly refuse such a distinguished customer he pretended that he had no stones of the size which the Baron required.
He could perhaps obtain them from a business friend "for cash."