"Aproposito, what do you think of the two new stars?"
"Oh, charming! delightful!" exclaimed a voice, whose light silvery tone doubly enhanced the value of its praise to the attentive listener in the back-ground. "Only I fear they will not profit us much; for if my eyes deceive me not, both are already captured."
"No doubt, child," said a voice which had not yet spoken; "good looks and good dancing are quite enough to constitute your standard of perfection."
"At all events," interrupted another, "they are very unlike Englishmen. Do you know," she continued, lowering her voice to a whisper, "that Don Alvar swears they are nothing else than a pair of French spies; and as he speaks English very well, he means to try them by and by."
The intelligence was pleasant! and Ernest seized the first instant when he could slip out unobserved, to go in search of his friend. After looking for him in vain amidst the dancing and chattering crowd, he wandered into an adjoining gallery, whose dark length was left to the light of the moon, in whose rays the gloomy portraits that covered the walls looked almost spectrally solemn. The gallery terminated in a terrace, which was decorated with colossal marble vases and stunted orange-trees, whose blossoms embalmed the air with their fragrance. As Ernest approached, the sound of whispered words caught his ear. He stood still an instant, hidden by the porphyry columns of the portico.
"Indeed, indeed, I must return; do not detain me; it is not right; I shall be missed; I cannot listen to you," murmured the low voice of Doña Inez.
"One moment more. Inez, I love, I adore you! Oh, do not turn from me thus—the present instant alone is ours; to-morrow, to-night, this hour perhaps, I may be forced to leave you; give me but hope, one smile, one word, and I will live upon that hope—live for the future—live for you alone, beloved one! till we compel fate to reunite us, or die. But you will not say that word; you care not for me—you love another!" said Alphonse bitterly. "Would that I had never seen you! you are cold, heartless! or you could not reject thus a love so ardent, so devoted, as that I fling at your feet."
"But why this impetuosity—this unreasonable haste? If you love me, there is time to-morrow, hereafter; but this is madness. I love no one—I hate Don Alvar; but your love is folly, insanity. Three hours ago you had never seen me, and now you swear my indifference will kill you. Oh! señor, señor! I am but a simple girl—I am but just seventeen; yet I know that were it even true that you love me, a love so sudden in its birth must perish as rapidly."
"It is not true! you know—you feel that it is not true—you do not think what you say! There is a love which, like the lightning, scorches the tree which it strikes, and blasts it for ever; but you reason—you do not love—fool that I am!"
"Oh! let me go—do not clasp my hand so—you are cruel!" and Inez burst into tears.