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her.
             
             
             
             
              When Michaela came back a few minutes later she found her
mistress still clinging to the back of a chair, her black head drooping like a
fallen flower; there was such despair in her attitude that the Moorish girl
suffered something very like a twinge of conscience before she realized that
Juana was trembling as much with fury as with grief.
             
             
             
              'Senorita?' she enquired cautiously.
             
             
             
              Juana answered without lifting her head. 'If that hideous
creature offers to come near me again — no matter what his reason — deny me to
him. I will not suffer his impudence again.'
             
             
             
              'Hideous? The Duque' s servant?' Michaela looked
speculative. 'I thought he was — not handsome, perhaps, but very much a man.
Such shoulders, and that hair — like fire! What did he say to make you angry?'
             
             
             
              Juana straightened, not knowing that there was
defensiveness in the motion, and her eyes were blazing. 'To — ' She broke off,
fighting down the impulse to blurt out everything; against her will, Tristán
had taught her a kind of discretion, she thought. 'It seems I have lost my
hopes of the Duque's indifference, or if he does not care, he is willing to
make pretence that he does.' She held out her hand.
              'He sent his man with this.'
             
             
             
              Michaela regarded the signet with interest. 'It is a
different crest,' she observed at once; 'a lion, not a bird.'
             
             
             
              'Perhaps it belonged to the Duque's mother. But if that man
returns I will not speak with him, do you hear?'
             
             
             
              Michaela stifled a grin at the spoiled - child intonation
that she knew so well; her mistress was recovering, she thought, chuckling with
relief.
             
             
             
              'Did his fierce face frighten you, senorita? Myself, I
could fancy him in spite of it — I like a man who is strong. But he did not
look at me. Still, I shall keep him from you, never fear! Though it seems he is
of some importance, to judge by what one of the Castillo's men was telling me.'
             
             
             
              Juana cut her short. 'I have no interest in gossip.'
             
             
             
              'As you will, senorita. But he said that the pellirojo has the ear of the Duque himself, and is closer to him than any — be even
sleeps in his chamber at night—
              and can guess his humours more easily than any, and knows
what he means to do.'
             
             
             
              Juana's lip curled. 'Can the Duque not speak for himself ?'
             
             
             
              'Such great folk do not need to speak with their own
voices! When you are Her Grace de Valenzuela you will have a dozen people to
tell the world your mind, one for each humour that you are in.' Michaela's
teasing tone altered as she saw her mistress's expression. 'Come now, to bed,
and when your supper is sent up you can eat it there. I shall go and tell your
Tia that you are too tired to be disturbed otherwise she will come and plague
you with talking. Oh, and while you were closeted with the pellirojo ,'
she added casually, 'the little dwarf - man came with a message from Dona Luisa
— she says that the household attends Mass in the chapel every