And who, then, is this man who rules them with his presence and who has
made himself master of Berta's heart? His name is Adrian Baker, he lives
alone, and he possesses a large fortune. This is all that is known about
him.

For the rest, he is young, tall, graceful in figure, with hair like gold
and a complexion as fair as snow; ardent and impassioned in speech, and
with steadfast, searching, and melancholy eyes, blue as the blue of deep
waters.

His manners could not be more natural, affectionate, and simple than they
are. He enters the house and runs up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Nothing stops him. If he meets Berta's father, he rushes to him and
embraces him, and the good man trembles from head to foot in the pressure
of those affectionate embraces. If it is the housekeeper who comes to meet
him, he lays his hand affectionately on her shoulder, and he always has
some pleasant remark to make, some cunning flattery which awakens in the
nurse a strange emotion. She feels as if the sap of youth were, of a
sudden, flowing through her veins.

There is no way of escaping the magic of his words, the spell of his
voice, the charm of his presence. Juana has observed that when he looks at
Berta his eyes shine with a light like that which the eyes of cats emit in
the dark; she has observed also that Berta turns pale under the power of
his glance, and that she bows her head under it as if yielding to the
influence of an irresistible will.

She has observed still more: she has observed that this mysterious man at
times sits lost in thought, his chin resting on his hand and a frown on
his brows, as if he saw some dreadful vision before him, and that