Dolores halted an instant between redoubled rage and mercy; then she flung down the whip with a hard laugh, seated herself in the great chair, and bade Milo and the girl rise and come to her.
"Milo, thou'rt a fool!" she said. "Were thy brain as great as thy great heart the world might well be thine. I tell thee, child or no child, that chit is woman enough to have bound thee her slave. She is woman enough, too, to hold secret converse with my foes. Do thou speak to her now and learn for me what traffic she had with Sancho the morning after I took her as my handmaid. I give thee scant time; if I learn it not swiftly neither thou nor she shall leave this chamber alive!"
With her giant beside her, Pascherette's fears subsided in part. She peered up at him shyly and stepped closer to him, as if to seek actual shelter from the storm that threatened her; but her frightened, dependent demeanor was scarcely in accord with the new light that glinted in her sharp eyes when she dropped them from his face again. There was cunning and craft in them; the brazen assurance of a thief whose conviction is prevented by a lucky mishap.
She spoke rapidly, for his ears only, and her face drooped in an access of confusion that, beautifully simulated, satisfied Milo and sent a warm thrill into his honest breast.
"Pascherette says she only gave Sancho his answer," Milo told Dolores. "He had demanded her for his mate."
"A pretty tale!" cried Dolores impatiently. "If that be all, why so fearful of telling me, girl? Why did Sancho, who well knows the price, join Rufe against me?"
"I was afraid," murmured Pascherette with a pretty shiver. She summoned a rosy blush to her piquant face and added in a still lower whisper: "Thy anger terrified me, Sultana. My tongue was tied. And Sancho did what he did in rage, in jealousy against Milo."
The giant drew himself more erect, and his face became transfigured. If in his great heart there remained any room after his devotion to his mistress, cunning little Pascherette occupied it all when she uttered the half-admission that Milo was her man. Dolores regarded the pair silently; her expression changed slowly from irritation to query; from unbelief to amusement, and after a moment's reflection she smiled without softness and said: "Milo, I would do much for thee. For double dealing I have no mercy. If thy love-bird would have me believe, if she is ought to thee, bid her seek Sancho and bring him to me. Let her bring him at her own hands before my hunters run him to earth, and I forgive thee both. She has fooled thee; she can fool Sancho."