“Don’t imagine,” the actress continued, “that I forgot you during all this time.  I am a real friend, you see, and take an interest!  I learned through Cupido, who ferrets out everything, just what you were doing in Madrid.  I, too, figured among your admirers.  That proves what friendship can do! ...  I don’t know why, but when senor Brull is concerned, I swallow the biggest whoppers, though I know they’re lies.  When you made your speech in the Chambers on that matter of flood protection, I sent to Alcira for the paper and read the story through I don’t know how many times, believing blindly everything said in praise of you.  I once met Gladstone at a concert given by the Queen at Windsor Castle; I have known men who got to be presidents of their countries on sheer eloquence—­not to mention the politicians of Spain.  The majority of them I’ve had, one time or another, as hangers-on in my dressing-room—­once I had sung at the ‘Real.’  Well, despite all that, I took the exaggerations your party friends printed about you quite seriously for some days, putting you on a level with all the solemn top-notchers I have known.  And why, do you suppose?  Perhaps from my isolation and tranquillity here, which do make you lose perspective; or perhaps it was the influence of environment!  It is impossible to live in this region without being a subject of the Brulls!...  Can I be falling in love with you unawares?”

And once more she laughed the gleeful, candid, mocking laugh of other days.  At first she had received him seriously, simply, under the influence still of solitude, country life and the longing for rest and quiet.  But once in actual contact with him again, the sight, again, of that lovesick expression in eyes which now, however, showed a trace of self-possession, the old teaser had reappeared in her; and her irony cut into the youth’s flesh like a steel blade.

“Stranger things than that have happened,” Rafael snapped boldly, and imitating her sarcastic smile.  “It’s humanly conceivable that even you should wind up by falling in love with even me—­out of pity, of course!”

“No,” answered Leonora bluntly.  “It’s not even humanly conceivable.  I’ll never fall in love with you ...  And even if I should,” she continued in a gentle, almost mothering tone, “you would never know about it.  I should keep it jolly well to myself—­so as to prevent your going crazy on finding your affections returned.  All afternoon I have been trying to evade this explanation.  I have brought up a thousand subjects, I have inquired about your life in Madrid—­even going into details that haven’t the slightest interest for me—­all to keep the talk off love.  But with you, that’s impossible; you always come back to that sooner or later.  Very well, so be it ...  But I’ll never love you—­I must not love you.  If I had made your acquaintance somewhere else, but under the same romantic circumstances, I don’t say it mightn’t have happened.  But here!...  My scruples may make you laugh, but I feel as though I’d be committing a crime to love you.  It would be like entering a home and repaying the hospitality by purloining the silverware.”