Her mother and the Duke were already seated: the maids were pouring wine into chalices from a goblet that stood on a small table apart. The host and Gulvarez seated themselves, and then Father Joseph. Then the four chiefs of the bowmen came in, and took seats lower down the table. Father Joseph said grace. And still that look in the eyes of Mirandola.
Then Mirandola went over to the maids that stood at the table apart, and took from them one of the chalices and carried it to Gulvarez. Her father and mother smiled at her mistake, for she should have carried it to the Duke first; but their smiles broadened into smiles of merry understanding as each caught the other’s eye. Gulvarez would have strutted had he been standing; had he been a peacock he would have spread his tail-feathers and rattled them. As it was, smirks and smiles expressed all this and more. He was about to speak, but Mirandola left him to fetch another chalice. So far as Father Joseph was concerned it was unnecessary for Gulvarez to say anything, for the priest knew every thought that passed through his mind, but he had not yet fathomed the mood of Mirandola.
Then, returning, she offered a chalice to the Duke and went back and stood by her mother.
“Be seated, child, by Señor Gulvarez,” said her mother.
But Mirandola still stood there awhile.
Gulvarez, though flustered with pride because he had been given the wine by Mirandola first, yet dared not drink it before his august friend drank. Now they both drank together. Still Mirandola stood beside her mother, between her and the Duke. A moment she watched him with those eyes that never saw less than keenly; then she turned from a glance of the Duke’s blue eyes and answered her mother tardily, as though just returned from far dreams. “Yes, Mother,” she said, and went to the chair beside Señor Gulvarez.
And now wine was carried by the maids to Father Joseph and the four chiefs of the bowmen, whereafter they placed the goblet before their master. And meats were set before all, and talk arose, and men’s hearts were warmed and they spoke of hunts that had been and the taking of ancient boars. But silent and with a strange look sat the Duke of Shadow Valley.
XVIII
The Love-Potion
The look on the face of the Duke of Shadow Valley was gradually growing stranger. The outlines of his face were wearying; his quick glances roamed no more, but turned to his plate listlessly; and he was breathing faster. The lady of the Tower thought his cheeks grew a little paler under the summer’s tan and yet she was not sure; when a pallor swept over his face even to the lips suddenly. And all at once the Duke was very sick.
“Poison?” wondered Father Joseph. “Not the Lord of the Tower,” he thought, “nor his lady, nor Mirandola.” He looked quickly at the others, from face to face. “No. What then?”
So far Father Joseph was right; but no one had spoken and he needed more material to arrive at the truth. Then the Duke was sick again. All the bowmen stood up, irresolute.
Still no one spoke, unless the murmured anxieties of the Lady of the Tower were speech.
Mirandola was silent as a little sphinx long left by the earliest dynasty in a tomb of rock under sand. Gulvarez was thinking to himself that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain, whatever happened to the Duke when he arrived.
The Duke was sick again all in the silence.
Then suddenly there was speech. Suddenly there was a tempest of words stinging and fierce and hot, as when Africa rains sand through a silvery darkness. It was the Duke speaking. His courtly tongue, for whose grace he was known through Spain, shot forth the words as the long whip hurls the little lash at its end.
The Lord of the Tower seemed to be growing smaller as though shrivelling under the words; Father Joseph’s eyes turned downward and he became absorbed with humility. I will not repeat the words.
Against his hostess the Duke said nothing, but his speech so blasted Gulvarez for bringing him there that she shuddered.
And the bowmen stood there ready, awaiting any command from their master. He accused none of poison: had he done so the hands of the bowmen would have been on that one’s shoulders instantly: but he deemed himself insulted either with meat long dead, or with wine of so deadly a cheapness that when the gipsies brew it out of no honest berries they neither drink it themselves nor allow their children near it. It was this insult that the serene hidalgo felt more than the pains of the retchings. And these were severe. His anger raged as though from some magical source rather than any annoyance caused by mere earthly cares. And he would have still raged on till all but he had gone trembling out from the chamber; but another bout of retchings came upon him, and all pressed round him offering ministrations. None of these would he have, but only demanded of them the place of his bedchamber, desiring to rest awhile before he should ride away from the cursed house. And this the Lord of the Tower offered to show him, bent almost to his knees by contrition at the neglect of his duty as host and at the insult offered in his house to so serene a hidalgo. But the Duke of Shadow Valley would have none of him; and commanded his bowmen instead to find the way to his bedchamber. They therefore searched discreetly; two going on before, the Duke following slowly, supported by the shoulder of another, while the fourth marched menacingly behind, to guard his master against whatever new outrage might be meditated in this suspicious house. Behind the fourth bowman, and as near as they durst, followed the whole household, trying
