“That is true, and I’m sure I don’t blame the queen for repaying his important services.  But he doesn’t seen to have any heart himself.”

“Why not?  He treats all with more than ordinary courtesy, and has a voice and manner to win almost any heart he wills.  But some dark hints are thrown out about him.”

“In what respect, as having already been in love?” asked the other lady.

“Yes, and the tender melancholy that every one notices, is owing to disappointed affection.”

“It is strange that he should meet with disappointment, for General Bezan could marry the proudest lady of the court of Madrid.”

“O, you forget when he came home to Spain he was only an humble captain of infantry, who had seen little service.  Now he is a general, and already distinguished.”

They were nearer right in their surmises than even themselves were aware of.  It was very true that Captain Bezan, the unknown soldier, and General Bezan, the queen’s favorite, honored by orders, and entrusted with important commissions, successful in desperate battles, and the hero of the civil war, were two very different individuals.  No one realized this more acutely than did Lorenzo Bezan himself.  No step towards preferment and honor did he make without comparing his situation with the humble lieutenant’s birth that he filled when he first knew Isabella Gonzales, and when his hopes had run so high, as it regarded winning her love.

Of all the beauty and rank of the Castilian court, at the period of which we write, the Countess Moranza was universality pronounced the queen of beauty.  A lineal descendant of the throne, her position near the queen was of such a nature as to give her great influence, and to cause her favor to be sought with an earnestness only second to the service rendered to the queen herself.  Her sway over the hearts of men had been unlimited; courted and sought after by the nobles of the land, her heart had never yet been touched, or her favors granted beyond the proud civility that her birth, rank and position at court entitled her to dispense.

She differed from Isabella Gonzales but little in character, save in the tenderness and womanliness, so to speak, of her heart-that she could not control; otherwise she possessed all the pride and self-conceit that her parentage and present position were calculated to engender and foster.  On Lorenzo’s Bezan’s first appearance at court she had been attracted by his youth, his fame, the absence of pride in his bearing, and the very subdued and tender, if not melancholy, cast of his countenance.  She was formally introduced to him by the queen, and was as much delighted by the simple sincerity of his conversation as she had been by his bearing and the fame that preceded his arrival at the court.  She had long been accustomed to the flirting and attention of the court gallants, and had regarded them with little feeling; but there was one who spoke from the heart, and she found that he spoke to the heart, also, for she was warmly interested in him at once.