“You are talked about, you and Perez,” he had informed her, “and the thing may have evil consequences. It is because I have eaten your bread that I tell you this for your own good.”
She had risen up in a great passion.
“You will leave my house, and never set foot in it again,” she had told him. “You should learn that grooms and lackeys have no concern in the conduct of great ladies. It is because you have eaten my bread that I tell you this for your own good.”
It drove him out incontinently, but it left her in the condition in which I was later to discover her. I set myself to soothe her. I swore that Escovedo should be punished. But she would not be soothed. She blamed herself for an unpardonable rashness. She should not have taken that tone with Escovedo. He could avenge himself by telling Philip, and if he told Philip, and Philip believed him—as Philip would, being jealous and mistrustful beyond all men—my ruin must follow. She had thought only of herself in dismissing him in that high-handed manner. Coming since to think of me it was that she had fallen into this despair. She clung to me in tears.
“Forgive me, Antonio. The fault is all mine—the fault of all. Always have I known that this danger must overhang you as a penalty for loving me. Always I knew it, and, knowing it, I should have been stronger. I should have sent you from me at the first. But I was so starved of love from childhood till I met you. I hungered so for love—for your love, Antonio—that I had not the strength. I was weak and selfish, and because I was ready and glad to pay the price myself, whatever it should be and whenever asked, I did not take thought enough for you.”
“Take no thought now,” I implored her, holding her close.
“I must. I can't help it. I have raised this peril for you. He will go to Philip.”
“Not he; he dare not. I am his only hope. I am the ladder by which he hopes to scale the heaven of his high ambition. If he destroys me, there is the kennel for himself. He knows it.”
“Do you say that to comfort me, or is it really true?”
“God's truth, sweetheart,” I swore, and drew her closer.