"Oh!" she cried, "was there ever a woman like you? As the Duchess said, you care for nothing. You are the most beautiful girl in the world, and it is nothing to you. No wonder a dairy-maid can supplant you. Why, if I had a tenth of your beauty--I would have kings and emperors at my feet!" Valentine la Niña looked at her without smiling, or the least show of feeling. "It is likely," she said; "you are free, I am bound. When I receive my orders, I shall obey them." "You are a strange creature," cried the Countess. "Orders--who is to command you? Bound--what chains are there that a suitable marriage will not break?" "Those!" said Valentine la Niña, opening her robe at the throat, and showing to the astonished eyes of the Countess Livia the black crucifix and the hair shirt of discipline. CHAPTER XXVIII. THIRD COUNCIL OF WAR Raphael had not been long in his bedroom when a light knock came to the door. He looked about him with a startled air, as if there might be something to be concealed on some table or in some alcove. All seemed in order to his eye. Reassured, he went on tiptoe and opened the door very gently, just so far that whoever stood without might enter. "You?" he said, in a tone of surprise. And the Jesuit father came into the room, softly smiling at the young man's surprise. "Ah," he said, with the most delicate touch of rebuke in his tone, "you perhaps expected your major-domo, your steward. I forgot that you were a bachelor and must attend to the morrow's provender, otherwise we should all starve." "Ah, no," said the Master of Collioure, "I have a good housekeeper, in addition to Sebastian Tet, my major-domo. I can sleep on both ears and know that my guests will not go dinnerless to-morrow. We are poor, but there is always soup in the cabbage-garden, fish in the sea, mutton on the hills, and wine everywhere at Collioure--good and strong, the wine of Roussillon!" "Faith," said the Jesuit, "but for the Order, a man might do worse than abide here. 'Tis Egypt and its fleshpots! No wonder you are so fond of it. And" (here he paused a little to give weight to his words) "Paul Morella told me to-day that there is even a Cleopatra of the Heavy Locks up there among the flocks of Goshen! You make your land of bondage complete indeed!" The dark face of Raphael grew livid and unlovely, as the eyes of the smiling priest rested shrewdly upon him. "Paul Morella meddles with what does not concern him," he answered brusquely; "that is no safe business in Roussillon, as he will find--especially when one has a sister of an unguarded tongue. I have seen a knife-point look out at the other side of a man for less!" Father Mariana raised his plump hands in deprecation.