Why did her favourite of fortune bear these traces of former anxieties?

Now the priest interrupted him.  Had he told her John of her entrance?

Yet that was scarcely possible, for his face revealed no trace of filial pleasure.  On the contrary.  He rallied his courage, as if he were about to step into a cold river, straightened himself, and pressed his right hand, clinched into a fist, upon his hip.  Perhaps—­the saints be praised!—­Father Dorante might have reminded him of something else, for he turned to Escovedo again and gave him an order.

Then he waved his hand, flung back his handsome head as King Philip was in the habit of doing, but in a far nobler, freer manner, hastily passed his hand through his wavy hair, as if to strengthen his courage, and then walked slowly, with haughty, almost arrogant dignity, to the door.

On the threshold he paused and looked at her.  How bright were the large blue eyes which now gazed at Barbara with an expression far more searching than joyous.

Yet even while, with one hand resting on the back of the chair and the other pressed upon her panting bosom, she was striving to find the right words, Don John’s glance brightened.

She was not mistaken.  He had dreaded this meeting, and now with joyful surprise was asking himself whether this could be the woman who had been described to him as a showy, extremely whimsical, perverse person, who used her son’s renown to obtain access to aristocratic houses and as many pleasures as possible.

She must at any rate have been remarkably beautiful, and how wonderfully her delicately chiselled features had retained a charm which is usually peculiar to youth! how well the now dull gold of her thick tresses harmonized with the faint flush on the almost unwrinkled face! and how dignified was the bearing of her figure, still slender, in spite of her matronly increase in flesh!

No wonder that she had once fired the heart of his distinguished father!  Now—­that sunny glance could not deceive Barbara—­now her appearance had ceased to be unpleasant to him; nay, perhaps even pleased him.  And now she could bear it no longer; from the inmost depths of her heart rose the cry:  “John, my child!  My dear, dear son!”

Again, with the speed of lightning, the question darted through Don John’s mind:  “Is this the woman whose voice, I was told, offended the ear?  Spiteful, base slander!” How fervent, how gentle, how full of tender affection her cry had sounded!  Not even from the lips of Doha Magdalena, his much-loved “Tia,” had his own name ever echoed so musically as from those of yonder woman, whom he had just shrunk from meeting as though it were an inevitable misfortune.

Shame, regret, love, seethed hotly within him.  It was long since he had felt emotion like that which mastered him when her tearful eyes again met his, and now, in the enthusiastic soul of this favourite of fortune, whose lofty flight neither glory, nor fame, nor disappointment could paralyze, in the bosom of this good, high-minded young human being stirred the consciousness that a great new happiness was in store for him, and from his lips rang the cry for which Barbara had waited so long with vain yearning, “Mother!” and again “Mother!”