ht to have been habituated, little by little, to the
world, or else to have been wholly withdrawn from it.

"The day, to-morrow, will seem very long to me," she said, receiving his
kisses on her forehead. "But stay in the salon, and speak loud, that I
may hear your voice; it fills my soul."

Montefiore, clever enough to imagine the girl's life, was all the more
satisfied with himself for restraining his desires because he saw
that it would lead to his greater contentment. He returned to his room
without accident.

Ten days went by without any event occurring to trouble the peace and
solitude of the house. Montefiore employed his Italian cajolery on old
Perez, on Dona Lagounia, on the apprentice, even on the cook, and they
all liked him; but, in spite of the confidence he now inspired in them,
he never asked to see Juana, or to have the door of her mysterious
hiding-place opened to him. The young girl, hungry to see her lover,
implored him to do so; but he always refused her from an instinct of
prudence. Besides, he had used his best powers and fascinations to lull
the suspicions of the old couple, and had now accustomed them to see
him, a soldier, stay in bed till midday on pretence that he was ill.
Thus the lovers lived only in the night-time, when the rest of
the household were asleep. If Montefiore had not been one of those
libertines whom the habit of gallantry enables to retain their
self-possession under all circumstances, he might have been lost a dozen
times during those ten days. A young lover, in the simplicity of a
first love, would have committed the enchanting imprudences which are
so difficult to resist. But he did resist even Juana herself, Juana
pouting, Juana making her long hair a chain which she wound about his
neck when caution told him he must go.

The most suspicious of guardians would however have been puzzled to
detect the secret of their nightly meetings. It is to be supposed
that, sure of success, the Italian marquis gave himself the ineffable
pleasures of a slow seduction, step by step, leading gradually to the
fire which should end the affair in a conflagration. On the eleventh
day, at the dinner-table, he thought it wise to inform old Perez, under
seal of secrecy, that the reason of his separation from his family was
an ill-assorted marriage. This false revelation was an infamous thing
in view of the nocturnal drama which was being played under that roof.
Montefiore, an experienced rake,