Pablo asked the Fathers to be seated. His mistress was staying in bed, he said, and the cook had burnt her hand, and the other maids were lazy. He brought wood and laid a fire.
After some time, Doña Isabella entered, dressed in heavy mourning, her face very white against the black, and her eyes red. The curls about her neck and ears were pale, too—quite ashen.
After Father Vaillant had greeted her and spoken consoling words, the young lawyer began once more gently to explain to her the difficulties that confronted them, and what they must do to defeat the action of the Olivares family. She sat submissively, touching her eyes and nose with her little lace handkerchief, and clearly not even trying to understand a word of what he said to her.
Father Joseph soon lost patience and himself approached the widow. "You understand, my child," he began briskly, "that your husband's brothers are determined to disregard his wishes, to defraud you and your daughter, and, eventually, the Church. This is no time for childish vanity. To prevent this outrage to your husband's memory, you must satisfy the court that you are old enough to be the mother of Mademoiselle Inez. You must resolutely declare your true age; fifty-three, is it not?"
Doña Isabella became pallid with fright. She shrank into one end of the deep sofa, but her blue eyes focused and gathered light, as she became intensely, rigidly animated in her corner,—her back against the wall, as it were.
"Fifty-three!" she cried in a voice of horrified amazement. "Why, I never heard of anything so outrageous! I was forty-two my last birthday. It was in December, the fourth of December. If Antonio were here, he would tell you! And he wouldn't let you scold me and talk about business to me, either, Father Joseph. He never let anybody talk about business to me!" She hid her face in her little handkerchief and began to cry.
Father Latour checked his impetuous Vicar, and sat down on the sofa beside Madame Olivares, feeling very sorry for her and speaking very gently. "Forty-two to your friends, dear Madame Olivares, and to the world. In heart and face you are younger than that. But to the Law and the Church there must be a literal reckoning. A formal statement in court will not make you any older to your friends; it will not add one line to your face. A woman, you know, is as old as she looks."
"That's very sweet of you to say, Bishop Latour," the lady quavered, looking up at him with tearbright eyes. "But I never could hold up my head again. Let the Olivares have that old money. I don't want it."
Father Vaillant sprang up and glared down at her as if he could put common sense into her drooping head by the mere intensity of his gaze. "Four hundred thousand pesos, Señora Isabella!" he cried. "Ease and comfort for you and your daughter all the rest of your lives. Would you make your daughter a beggar? The Olivares will take everything."
"I can't help it about Inez," she pleaded. "Inez means to go into the convent anyway. And I don't care about the money. Ah, mon père, je voudrais mieux être jeune et mendiante, que n'être que vieille et riche, certes, oui!"