“That I will,” returned the Don, soothingly, “if interposition of my words or body can. And one of these days, Doña Viola, we will talk these matters over calmly, and discuss what is best to be done.”
“The poor thing is crazed,” he said an hour after to his countess, “to love this Hilo! It was not easy to bring my mouth to call the scamp ‘cavalier;’ but her innocent distress overcame the reluctance. When this feverish excitement, which forbids all close questioning, subsides, it will be well to learn more, if she knows more of her betrothed. And if I set out before that can be done—”
“What, do you really go to this war!” exclaimed our heroine, with the admirable versatility of the sex, “when you have resigned yourself to the gratification of a particular request not at all to your liking at first.
“Dear, Sir Pedro, don’t you think some better way may be found of accomplishing our purpose? For instance, let some trusty person find out this young man and carry him a letter from you, as from an uncle solicitous of doing him a benefit. Or, perhaps, Señor Inique might be moved from his design by your calm representations. Only don’t go!” she urged, with a tremulous lip.
To this outbreak Don Pedro de Padilh, with the tranquillity of one who remembers a story he is anxious to tell and overlooks the last question, rejoined,
“Did you ever hear, Hermosa, the history of the wonderful cat that lived in Biscay when I was of no great size myself? There is one of the tribe on the battlement yonder, marked as that intelligent animal must have been, and put the story in my head.”
“Pshaw!” said the countess, half inclined to laugh, with tears in her eyes.
“This cat was remarkable for ugliness and cunning, qualities which increased the umbrage the priest naturally took to a cat who was said to use better Latin than himself, to that degree he could not rest at ease until the object of his jealousy was condemned to be burned, on the rational plea of possessing more learning than was orthodox. But so sagacious a creature was not to be caught asleep, and at the first rumor of the affair took occasion to pay his respects to the most notorious gossip of the province.
“‘Ah!’ said the cat, in the course of conversation, “‘talking of merit, I am so delighted to find it rewarded occasionally, that I have been in a state of ecstasy since the news came from the capital.’
“‘Santomio!’ cried the old woman arrectis auribus; ‘what are they doing there, my dear cat?’