The Velvet Glove Part 15

Sarrion made a grimace, uncomplimentary to that very smart soldier General Pacheco, and at the foot of the stairs he stopped to speak to a friend. He spoke in French and named the man by his baptismal name; for this was a Frenchman, named Deulin, a person of mystery, supposed to be in the diplomatic service in some indefinite position. With him was an Englishman, who greeted Marcos as a friend.

"What do you make of all this?" asked Sarrion, addressing himself to the Englishman, who, however, rather cleverly pa.s.sed the question on to the older man with a slow, British gesture.

"I make of it--that they only want a little money to make Don Carlos king," said Deulin.

"What is Evasio Mon doing in Madrid?" asked Sarrion.

"Raising the money, or spending it," replied the Frenchman, with a shrug of the shoulders, as if it were no business of his.

They pa.s.sed up-stairs together, but had not gone far when Marcos said the Englishman's name without raising his voice.

"Cartoner."

He turned, and Marcos ran up three steps to meet him.

"Who is the prelate with the face of a fox-terrier?" he asked.

"He represents the Vatican. Is he with Mon?"

Marcos nodded an affirmative, and, turning, descended the stairs.

"I had better get back to Pampeluna," he said to his father.

The train for the Northern frontier leaves Madrid in the evening, and at this time no man knew who might be the next to take a ticket for France.

The Sarrions made their preparations to depart the same evening, and, arriving early, secured a compartment to themselves. Marcos, however, did not take his seat, but stood on the platform looking towards the gate through which the pa.s.sengers must come.

"Are you looking for some one?" asked Sarrion.

"General Pacheco," was the reply; and then, after a pause, "Here he comes. He is attended by three aides-de-camp and a squadron of orderlies.

He carries his head very high."

"But his feet are on the ground," commented Sarrion, who was rolling himself a cigarette. "Shall we invite him to come with us?"

"Yes."

General Pacheco was one of those soldiers of the fifties who owed their success to a handsome face. He wore a huge moustache, curling to his eyes, and had the air of an invincible conqueror--of hearts. He had dined. He was going to take up his new command in the North. He walked, as the French say, on air, and he certainly swaggered in his gait on that thin base. He was hardly surprised to see the Count Sarrion, one of the exclusives who had never accepted Queen Isabella's new military aristocracy, with his hat in one hand and the other extended towards him, on the platform awaiting his arrival.

"You will travel with us," said Sarrion. And the General accepted, looking round to see that his attendants were duly impressed.

"I find," he said, seating himself and accepting a cigarette from Sarrion, "that each new success in life brings me new friends."

"Making it necessary to abandon the old ones," suggested Sarrion.

"No, no," laughed the General, with a cackle, and a patronising hand upheld against the mere thought. "One only adds to the number as one goes on; just as one adds to a little purse against the change of fortune, eh?"

And he looked from one to the other still, brown face with a cunning twinkle. Sarrion was a man of the world. He knew that this expansiveness would not last. It would probably give way to melancholy or somnolence in the course of half an hour. These things are a matter of the digestion.

And many vows of friendship are made by perfectly sober persons who have dined, with a sincerity which pa.s.ses off next morning. The milk of human kindness should be allowed to stand overnight in order to prove its quality.

"Ah," said Sarrion, "you speak from a happy experience."

"No, no," protested the other, gravely. "It is a small thing--a mere bagatelle in the French Rentes--but one sees one's opportunities, one sees one's opportunities."

He made a gesture with the two fingers that held his cigarette, which seemed to be a warning to the Sarrions not to make any mistake as to the shrewdness of him who spoke to them.

"Speak for yourself," said Sarrion, with a laugh.

"I do," insisted the other, leaning forward. "I speak essentially for myself. One does not mind admitting it to a man like yourself. All the world knows that you are a Carlist at heart."

"Does it?"

"Yes--and you must take comfort. I think you are on the right road now."

"I hope we are."

"I am sure of it. Money. That is the only way. To go to the right people with money in both hands."

He sat back and looked at the Sarrions with his little, cunning eyes twinkling beneath his gold laced cap. The expansiveness would not last much longer. Sarrion's dark glance was diagnosing the man with a deadly skill.

"The thing," he said slowly, "is to strike while the iron is hot."

He spoke in the symbolic way of a people much given to proverbial wisdom and the dark uses of allegory. He might have meant much or nothing. As it happened, the Count de Sarrion meant nothing; for he knew nothing.

"That is what I say. Give me a couple of months, I want no more."

"No?" said Sarrion, looking at him with much admiration. "Is that so?"

"Two months--and the sum of money I named."

"Ah! In two months," reflected Sarrion. "Rome, you know, was not built in a day."

The General gave his cackling laugh.

"Aha! " he cried, "I see that you know all about it. You gave me my cue--the word Rome, eh? To see how much I know!"

And the great soldier-statesman leant back in his seat again, well pleased with himself.

"I understand," he said, "that it amounts to this; the sanction of the Vatican is required to the remittance of the usual novitiate in the case of a young person who is in a great hurry to take the veil; once that is obtained the money is set at liberty and all goes merrily. There is enough to--well, let us say--to convince my whole army corps, and my humble self. And the Vatican will, of course, consent. I fancy that is how it stands."

He tapped his pocket as if the golden "pieces de conviction" were already there, and closed his eye like any common person; like, for instance, his own father, who was an Andalusian innkeeper.

"I fancy that is how it is," said Sarrion, turning gravely to Marcos. "Is it not so?"

"That is how it is," replied Marcos.

The effect of the good dinner was already wearing off. The train had started, and General Pacheco found himself disinclined for further conversation. He begged leave to ease some of the tighter straps and hooks of his smart tunic, opening the collar of solid gold lace that encircled his thick neck. In a few minutes he was asleep beneath the speculative eye of Marcos, who sat in the far corner of the carriage.

The General was going to Saragossa, so they parted from him in the cold, early morning at Castejon, where an icy wind swept over the plain, and the snow lay thick on the ground.