Don Jayme appealed, sneering, to the friar. «She did not know me occupied! I am the King's representative in Porto Rico, his Majesty's Governor of this island, and my wife does not know that I am occupied, conceives that I have leisure. It is unbelievable. But come in, Hernanda. Come in.» He grew more playful. «Acquaint yourself with the honours the King bestows upon his poor servant. This may help you to realize what his Majesty does me the justice to realize, although you may have failed to do so: that my occupations here are onerous.»
Timidly she advanced, obedient to his invitation. «What is it, Jayme?»
«What is it?» He seemed to mimic her. «It is merely this.» He displayed the order. «His Majesty invests me with the cross of Saint James of Compostella. That is all.»
She grew conscious that she was mocked. Her pale, delicate face flushed a little. But there was no accompanying sparkle of her great, dark, wistful eyes, to proclaim it a flush of pleasure. Rather, thought Don Pedro, she flushed from shame and resentment at being so contemptuously used before a stranger and at the boorishness of a husband who could so use her.
«I am glad, Jayme,» she said, in a gentle, weary voice. «I felicitate you. I am glad.»
«Ah! You are glad! Frey Alonso, you will observe that Dona Hernanda is glad.» Thus he sneered at her without even the poor grace of being witty. «This gentleman, by whose hand the order came, is a kinsman of yours, Hernanda.»
She turned aside, to look again at that elegant stranger. Her gaze was blank. Yet she hesitated to deny him. Kinship when claimed by gentlemen charged by kings with missions of investiture is not lightly to be denied in the presence of such a husband as Don Jayme. And, after all, hers was a considerable family, and must include many with whom she was not personally acquainted.
The stranger bowed until the curls of his periwig met across his face. «You will not remember me, Dona Hernanda. I am, nevertheless, your cousin, and you will have heard of me from our other cousin Rodrigo. I am Pedro de Queiroz.»
«You are Pedro?» She stared the harder. «Why, then …» She laughed a little. «Oh, but I remember Pedro. We played together as children, Pedro and I.»
Something in her tone seemed to deny him. But he confronted her unperturbed.