The brown eyes looked sternly. "In a word, aunt, you covet my possessions. And so we have the truth at last!" "Naturally, child. What did you suppose?" said Doña Beatrice, unruffled. "We find ourselves in deplorably straitened circumstances, and you come as a gift from heaven, one would say." Dominica looked round at the opulence of the room. "One does not immediately perceive your poverty, señora." "Certainly not," said Doña Beatrice. "We all maintain a good appearance. But show me the man who is not impoverished to-day for all his outward pomp!" "I think," said Dominica forcibly, "that Spain is a hateful country, and the people--corrupt!" "Very corrupt," agreed Doña Beatrice. "An age of loose-living. I remember when I was a girl a Spanish lady was the model of decorum. It is all very different now, and much more amusing. I believe that we become a byword." "I wonder, señora, that you are content to be so!" "To be a byword? What odds? As for our corruption, what would you, when the King keeps his grandees away from the affairs of state, and encourages them to waste their substance?" She shrugged. "I observe, and I am content to smile." "So it seems," said Dominica. "Yet you can leave smiling to lend yourself to an odious scheme to marry me to my cousin. Well, I will not wed him. Never! You will see, señora, that I mean what I say." "I don't doubt it, my dear. You are a very charming girl, and you have wit--a little. But when you put your wit against mine you must lose." "When you find, señora, that my wits have won the day----" Her aunt rose. "I shall have a lively respect for you, my dear. Cut velvet and your pearls. I will see to it." Well, in the end Dominica gave way, and not quite from a sense of duty. Her aunt's attitude had given her pause; that placid, smiling dame frightened her: there was no gainsaying it. She guessed that she was required to appear in public to give the lie to a world that might possibly be saying that the Carvalhos kept her cooped up against her will. There was her uncle on the mother's side, one Miguel de Tobar, who had two likely sons of his own, and might conceivably have designs upon her himself. One suitor was as distasteful as the other, but it might serve to play off Tobar against the Carvalhos, Dominica thought. She began to scheme and ponder, weaving her toils. She was afraid of Doña Beatrice, ay, but she would fight her for all that, and find joy in it. She put a finger to her lips, bit the rosy tip, and looked this way and that, frowning at fate. Policy dictated an end to her seclusion. She must go out into the world, and nose about for a deliverer. Tobar would serve to alarm the Carvalhos; she had very little intention of carrying it further than that. She had had letters from him, guarded enough, to be sure, but sufficiently plain in their purport to tell her that she might call on him and find a ready answer.