Part 37

“You saw them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Describe all four, and you shall have two pesetas instead of one.”

“One señora was Spanish, brunette, fat, with dead eyes in a large, soft face of two chins. The other was tall and foreign, handsome, but with an air! I would not be her servant. The señor was distinguished. Dark, with a thin nose that turned down, like his moustache; a face of an old picture; one shoulder higher than the other.”

“But the young lady?”

“Oh, sir, the señorita was a white and gold angel, made of a sunbeam! It was she who bought the knife, while the others chose a thing for the tall señora. She quickly gave it and the money to an attendant, with the address, saying it must be put into the gentleman’s own hand.”

I gave the boy five pesetas instead of two.

A paper-knife with the word Toledo engraved upon it from Monica for me! No message, only that! But was it not in itself a message—the only one she could find a way to send?

I went back to Don Cipriano. “I’ve just heard,” said I, “that when Carmona starts, he intends to go to Toledo.”

THE MAGIC WORD

When the others came back, and the paper-knife was shown, all agreed with me that it could mean but one thing. The best of it was that to go to Toledo the grey car must pass the Conde de Roldan’s place where my Gloria lay; and all we need do would be to await the moment when the Lecomte flashed by. Then we might give Carmona a surprise.

None of us doubted that he must guess the cause of his accident, as we guessed at ours; nevertheless, the blow he had inflicted was far more severe than our retaliation, and he doubtless hoped that, despite our revengeful scratch, he could slip out of Madrid leaving us hors de combat.

Don Cipriano dined with us that night, and went with the others to the Teatro Español, where the great Guerrero and her husband were acting. It was not thought well for me to appear, lest the Duke should be there, and say to some acquaintance, “You see the O’Donnel’s. Is that the son who is in the army?”

When they returned, Pilar had news. Carmona, with the Duchess, Lady Vale-Avon, and Monica had all been at the theatre in a box.

“I knew that girl was beautiful,” said Pilar, “but I didn’t know how beautiful until to-night! With her pearly skin and golden hair among all the dark heads, she gleamed like a pearl amid carbuncles, and everyone was looking at her. You know how we admire fair beauties, and how we expect to adore the young queen when she comes? Well, if it had been Princess Ena herself, people could hardly have stared more, and the Duke was delighted. He wants everything that’s best for himself, and to have others appreciate it. He was so proud of Lady Monica between acts, and kept bending over her as if she belonged to him. I don’t think he saw us; but I was glad you weren’t there, or you would have been wild to fly at him.”

“You make me wild to do that now,” I said.

“Have a little patience, and you will steal her,” said Pilar.

“If she would only let me! But she won’t.”

“Who knows what she will be ready to do if they press her? And after to-night, too! She seemed half afraid of him, as if she began to realize more and more what he is. Oh, if you weren’t here I should want to do some desperate deed and snatch her away myself! He likes having her admired, while she’s not yet his; but he has enough of the Moor in him to shut up a wife, so that no other man should see her beauty. And then presently he would tire, and be cruel.”

“Don’t let’s talk of it,” said I. “It’s not going to happen.”

Though it was so late before we slept, we were dressed at an unearthly hour—according to the Cherub—and driving out with the small luggage which accompanied us on the car, to Don Cipriano’s place on the Toledo road.

Ropes had spent the night there, and the Gloria was ready. The luggage was got into place; and Don Cipriano and his mother—a fairy godmother of an old lady, with a white dome of hair under a priceless black lace mantilla—were determined to provide us with food and drink as if to withstand a siege.

There was a snow-cured ham from Trevelez, the most famed in Andalucía. There was delicious home-made bread, cuernos, molletes, and panecillos; and olives large as grapes. There was white, curded cheese; quince jam or carne de membrillo; angels’ hair, made of shredded melons with honey; mazapan, smelling of almonds, and shaped like figures of saints, serpents, and horses; oranges from Seville and Tarifa; fat figs dried on sticks; and, most wonderful of all, a wineskin of the country, so old that the taste of the skin was gone a generation ago, and plump with as much good red wine as would have filled six bottles.

“You will need these things,” insisted the old lady, giving the Cherub a friendly pat on the arm, as she encircled Pilar’s waist. “It is different on the road between Madrid and Seville, from those you have travelled. You will want to lunch out of doors, in the sunshine, for you won’t find good things like these at any little venta. I know, for I have been with my son. I am a heroine, my friends say. We will pack everything well for you.”

“And the wineskin you must hang on the side of the car,” said Don Cipriano, all solicitude for our welfare, poor fellow, believing happily, as he did now, that neither Dick nor I was dangerous. “There’s no cure for Spanish dust, except Spanish wine. Besides, you’re going through wild country where automobiles are seldom seen. If peasants are inclined to throw stones, the sight of a good skin of wine should soften them. And what true man would risk damaging a wineskin?”

That fairy godmother, Doña Rosita, conceived a fancy for Dick, who flirted with her in his bad Spanish so outrageously that she was delighted. He made her feel young again, she said, and it was a shock to find that he was an American. She had not forgiven America for the Cuban war, which she had not understood in the least. “But you are not wicked!” she exclaimed. “I thought all American men were wicked, and would do anything for money. Ay de mi! I must again pardon Columbus for discovering your country, I suppose; though I have often said in these last years, how much better if he had left it alone. I used to stop in my carriage near the Cristóbal Colón statue in the Prado, when the war was on, and laugh to watch the people throw things, because they were annoyed with him for the trouble he had brought. Yet now I see there’s something to thank him for, after all.” This last with a look at Dick which must have melted his American heart like water if she had been of the age of Pilarcita. But what would she have said had she known that—indirectly—Columbus had sent to Spain a rival for her adored Cipriano?

Ignorance being bliss, the delightful mother and son were a hostess and a host almost too hospitable.

As if the hampers stowed in the car were not enough, a tremendous breakfast on a table loaded with flowers was provided for us. But just as we sat down, at ten o’clock, a servant on duty as scout appeared, panting after a scamper across fields, to say that a motor had passed. Our chauffeur sent word that it was the motor; and was ready to start our car.