"There is one can do much more with Asneiros than I can, Carlos," replied Doña Josefina, looking away from him with a fresh flourish of her fan.
"Impossible, Señora," replied Evaña; "anyone to whom you show favour is at once your slave."
"How the men are blind," replied the lady, turning her eyes again upon Evaña. "Always that Dolores comes to see me then comes Asneiros, and whilst she is here he has no eyes for anyone else."
"Dolores!" exclaimed Evaña with a sudden start.
"Dolores! yes, Dolores, Señor Don Carlos. Does it appear to you strange that that barbarian of a Spaniard should think more of Dolores than of me?"
"But Dolores! And she?"
"What matters to you Dolores?"
Then as Evaña leaned back in his chair with a frown on his face without answering, Doña Josefina bent forward and tapped him on the knee with her fan, saying:
"Ah! Carlos! you are a great politician, and very wise and very secret, but we ladies have our eyes and know how to use them. You are very astute, and think you can hide from us what you hope and wish for, but there are certain things that we know, and when the occasion comes, we discover them. But we, we are friends, Carlos; have no fear, there is one I know, for whose little fingers Dolores cares more than for the whole body of that Asneiros."
Again leaning back upon her cushions, she turned her lustrous black eyes upon him, gently fanning herself the while.