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Here it is," added Perez, taking it from a sideboard. "But it is useless. Juana's key is in the lock; her door is barricaded. We have been deceived, my wife!" he added, turning to Dona Lagounia. "There is a man in Juana's room." "Impossible! By my eternal salvation I say it is impossible!" said his wife. "Do not swear, Dona Lagounia.
"Tom, I have sent for you because I want you to go over with the padre to the jacal of Juana's parents. Father Norquin here is such an old granny that he believes I interfered, or the reply of last summer would have been favorable. Now, Tom, you're not to open your mouth one way or the other. The padre will state his errand, and the old couple will answer him in your presence.
In it, Montefiore had given his name and asked for an interview, offering, after the style of the old romances, his heart and hand to the Signorina Juana di Mancini a common trick, the success of which is nearly always certain. At Juana's age, nobility of soul increases the dangers which surround youth. A poet of our day has said: "Woman succumbs only to her own nobility.
When at last he mounted the stairs to Juana's room he was calm and collected, and able to reflect on his position, which resolved itself into two ideas: to leave the house, and get to the wharves. He did not think these ideas, he saw them written in fiery letters on the darkness.
Francisque was Diard, and Juana's incessant care and watchfulness betrayed her desire to correct in the son the vices of the father and to encourage his better qualities.
"Yes," she said reflectively, "I would like that; but I feel within my soul that I would like better than all the world my husband. Mio caro sposo!" she said, as if it were impossible to give in any other language the infinite tenderness, the loving elegance with which the Italian tongue and accent clothe those delightful words. Besides, Italian was Juana's maternal language.
In fact, at a great tournament held near Madrid in 1461, soon after Juana's arrival at the court, Beltran posed as her preferred champion, and held the lists against all comers in defence of his mistress's preëminent and matchless beauty.
Thomas Hardy has said that the most delicate women get used to strange moral situations, and there must have been something of this in Juana's makeup, or she would never have been forced into so shameful a position; but, however that may be, she was made to rue the day, as the king left her the next morning for Maria, his Venus Victrix, and never went to see her again, although he gave her the town of Duefias and allowed her to be addressed as "queen."
Within two months, however, Juana's claims were completely disregarded, it was officially announced that she was not in her right mind, and Fernando was empowered to take control of the Castilian government and rule as regent, according to the terms of the decree which had been arranged by Isabella some years before, and was to remain as a de facto sovereign until Charles had reached the specified majority.
Fierce and implacable as Tia Juana's will was, age had taken its toll of her mental strength and resiliency, and Willa shuddered to think of the coercion which might be brought to bear upon her bewildered and shaken sensibilities. Dan noted his mistress' profound despondency, but ventured no remark until she addressed him just as they reached the bridge once more.
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