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“Yes,” said Fonseca, eagerly; “it is in your power to save me from the most absolute wretchedness that can befall me. It is in your power, at least I think so, to render me the happiest of men!”

“Be seated, I pray you, senor. And how? I am your servant.”

“Thou knowest,” said Fonseca, “that, though the kinsman, I am not the favourite, of the Duke of Lerma?”

“Nay, nay,” interrupted Calderon, softly, and with a bland smile; “you misunderstand my illustrious patron: he loves you, but not your indiscretions.”

“Yes, honesty is very indiscreet! I cannot stoop to the life of the ante-chamber. I cannot, like the Duke of Lerma, detest my nearest relative if his shadow cross the line of my interests. I am of the race of Pelayo, not Oppas; and my profession, rather that of an ancient Persian than a modern Spaniard, is to manage the steed, to wield the sword, and to speak the truth.”

There was an earnestness and gallantry in the young man’s aspect, manner, and voice, as he thus spoke, which afforded the strongest contrast to the inscrutable brow and artificial softness of Calderon; and which, indeed, for the moment, occasioned that crafty and profound adventurer an involuntary feeling of self-humiliation.

“But,” continued Fonseca, “let this pass: I come to my story and my request. Do you, or do you not know, that I have been for some time attached to Beatriz Coello!”

“Beatriz,” replied Calderon, abstractedly, with an altered countenance, “it is a sweet name–it was my mother’s!”

“Your mother’s! I thought to have heard her name was Mary Sandalen?”

“True–Mary Beatriz Sandalen,” replied Calderon, indifferently. “But proceed. I heard, after your last visit to Madrid, when, owing to my own absence in Portugal, I was not fortunate enough to see you, that you had offended the duke by desiring an alliance unsuitable to your birth. Who, then, is this Beatriz Coello?”

“An orphan of humble origin and calling. In infancy she was left to the care of a woman who, I believe, had been her nurse; they were settled in Seville, and the old gouvernante’s labours in embroidery maintained them both till Beatriz was fourteen. At that time the poor woman was disabled by a stroke of palsy from continuing her labours, and Beatriz, good child, yearning to repay the obligation she had received, in her turn sought to maintain her protectress. She possessed the gift of a voice wonderful for its sweetness. This gift came to the knowledge of the superintendent of the theatre at Seville: he made her the most advantageous proposals to enter upon the stage. Beatriz; innocent child, was unaware of the perils of that profession: she accepted eagerly the means that would give comfort to the declining life of her only friend–she became an actress. At that time we were quartered in Seville, to keep guard on the suspected Moriscos.”

“Ah, the hated infidels!” muttered Calderon, fiercely, through his teeth.

“I saw Beatriz, and loved her at first sight. I do not say,” added Fonseca, with a blush, “that my suit, at the outset, was that which alone was worthy of her; but her virtue soon won my esteem as well as love. I left Seville to seek my father and obtain his consent to a marriage with Beatriz. You know a hidalgo’s prejudices–they are insuperable. Meanwhile, the fame of the beauty and voice of the young actress reached Madrid, and hither she was removed from Seville by royal command. To Madrid, then, I hastened, on the pretence of demanding promotion. You, as you have stated, were absent in Portugal on some state mission. I sought the Duke de Lerma. I implored him to give me some post, anywhere–I recked not beneath what sky, in the vast empire of Spain–in which, removed from the prejudices of birth and of class, and provided with other means, less precarious than those that depend on the sword, I might make Beatriz my wife. The polished duke was more inexorable than the stern hidalgo. I flew to Beatriz; I told her I had nothing but my heart and right hand to offer. She wept, and she refused me.”