Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 3 (1925-03).djvu/79



EANING against the barred window, Celestina looked as far down the darkened street as she could.

"Still he delays, my lady," she commented, dropping the curtain back into place and looking around.

The fan of the Countess de Torre did not pause in its slow, languorous sweep.

"He'll come, never fear."

"Perhaps he has learned that you mean to—"

"Hush!" the countess commanded, slapping shut her fan. "Hush, Celestina! Our walls here in Peru are thick, but they have windows. And the spies of the viceroy are everywhere. He must not catch even a whisper of what awaits him."

The elderly housekeeper sighed and for an instant studied the countess in her black dress and high comb.

"You are very sure of your prey," she remarked.

"Very," the younger lady agreed, and then, as though she did not think longer of so unimportant a matter, she settled more firmly into place a tiny rosebud above her left ear.

"And yet, it seems almost a pity that he must be killed."

"Have I not told you to hush?" cried the countess with a tang in her voice that betrayed her tense nerves. "Do not dare to weaken. You have sworn—"

"Yes, and I'll keep my oath. I loved your husband—loved him when he was not cruel to you. That was why I vowed. Yet I can't help thinking of the viceroy, too. Did you notice him this morning, outside the cathedral when he stopped me to find where you lived? Not a finer man in all his train. He has no wife, either, and now that he seeks your friendship, who knows what may happen? To be the lady of the highest representative of the crown in New Spain is no small honor, my lady."

"Had it not been for him, I'd not be thinking of husbands now. He killed mine. He made me widow and I'll make him—"

"But he loves you. It was in his eyes for all the world to read today."

The countess drew herself up proudly.

"Loves? What has that to do with me? He did not love my husband."

"Nor did you. Often I have heard you confess that. Yet his death gilds his life and so you cry for revenge."

"Pride demands it, and the honor of the Torre family."

Celestina shrugged.

"Pride ruled the viceroy's actions, too. He was protecting the honor of Spain in her richest colony. If the count, your husband, had had his desire, Potosi would have become a free city, and that stream of silver that crosses Panama to become the life-