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"I myself prefer to sleep here," he added condescendingly. "This other habitation accords better with my tastes." While saying this, he was entering Dona Luisa's rooms, admiring its Louis Quinze furniture of genuine value, with its dull golds and tapestries mellowed by time. It was one of the most successful purchases that Don Marcelo had made.
"At your feet, señora," he said to Doña Luisa, who held out both hands, welcome on her charming face. "I am an uninvited guest, but when I arrived at San Luis and found that all the town had come to one of Doña Luisa's famous balls, I rode on, hoping that for friendship's sake she would open her hospitable doors to a wanderer, and let him dance off the stiffness of a long ride."
When she had heard Luisa's voluble explanation of the part Toni had played during the long and wearying journey, Mrs. Moody turned to Toni with an expression of real gratitude on her still pretty face. "I really don't know how to thank you, Miss ... er ..." She hesitated, and Toni quickly supplied her with the first name she could think of, the name of her Italian mother's race.
It was near the close of the year 1808, when the chateau was the sombre witness of Dona Luisa's grief, that our story commences, and though its scene lies in another land thousands of leagues from, the Biscayan coast its history is intimately woven with that of the chateau of Elanchovi. Under ordinary circumstances, the village of Elanchovi presents a severe and dreary aspect.
Well, Dionea did a half-service for her last month, to prepare for the wedding of Luisa's daughter. Well, now, the girl must say, forsooth! that she won't have Pieriho of Lerici any longer, but will have that raggamuffin Wooden Pipe from Solaro, or go into a convent. And the girl changed her mind the very day that Dionea had come into the house.
From the sitting-room beyond the short passage the sound of Maria Luisa's voice, moaning in concert with old Assunta, gradually diminished till they were heard only at intervals, and at last ceased altogether. The household of Marzio Pandolfi was hushed in the presence of a great sorrow, and awed by the anticipation of a great misfortune.
Luisa, who looks the picture of innocence, wears an unexceptionable pink dress, with a train that bodes ill-luck, and many apologies, to her partners. A long train is Luisa's little game. One enthusiast pinned his fragment to his shoulder, like an order a knight of San Luisa, he called himself. Teresa Ottolini, with her mother, has just arrived.
She lifted out an armful of dry underclothing, then went to the door of an adjoining room and listened, her hand uplifted. "Didst thou have to lock him up?" asked Doña Pomposa, as she drew on a pair of Doña Luisa's silk stockings. "Yes! yes! And such a time, my friend! Thou knowest that after I fooled him the last time he swore I never should have another ball. But, Dios de mi alma!
May God punish those who have brought such sorrow on the world! The Emperor is innocent. His adversaries are to blame for it all . . ." Don Marcelo was silent about the letter in his wife's presence. He pitied Elena for her losses, so he overlooked her political connections. He was touched, too, at Dona Luisa's distress about Otto. She had been his godmother and Desnoyers his godfather.
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