The Velvet Glove Part 41

"I have my charge. I shall fulfil it," she said--determined, and not without a suggestion of coyness withal.

Juanita was lying in wait for a glance from Sarrion and when she received it she made a little movement of the eyelids, telling him to take Cousin Peligros away.

"You will stay the night," said Sarrion to Evasio Mon.

"No, my friend. Thank you very much. I cherish a hope of getting through the lines to-night to Pampeluna. I came indeed to offer my poor services as escort to these ladies who will surely be safer at Pampeluna."

"Then you think that they will besiege Torre Garda," asked Sarrion, innocently. "One never knows, my friend--one never knows. It seems to me that the firing is nearer this afternoon."

Sarrion laughed.

"You are always hearing guns."

Mon turned and looked at him and there was a suggestion of melancholy in his smile.

"Ah! Ramon," he said. "You and I have heard them all our lives."

And there was perhaps a second meaning in his words, known only to Sarrion, whose face softened for an instant.

"Let us have some coffee," he said, turning to Cousin Peligros. "Will you see to it, Peligros--in the library?"

So Peligros walked across the broad terrace with the mincing steps taught in the thirties, leaving Mon hatless with a bowed head according to the etiquette of those leisurely days. He was all things, to all men.

"By the way ..." said Sarrion, and followed her without completing his sentence.

So Juanita and Evasio Mon were left alone on the terrace. Juanita was sitting rather upright in a garden chair. The only seat near to her was the easy chair just vacated by Cousin Peligros. Mon looked at it. He glanced at Juanita and then drew it forward. She turned, and with a smile and gesture invited him to be seated. A watchful look came into Evasio Mon's quick eyes behind the gla.s.ses that reflected the last rays of the setting sun. For the young and the guilty, silence has a special terror.

Mon had dealt with the young and the guilty all his life. He sat down without speaking. He was waiting for Juanita. Juanita moved her toe within her neat black slipper, looking at it critically. She was waiting for Evasio Mon. He paused as a duellist may pause with his best weapons laid out on the table before him, wondering which one to select. Perhaps he suspected that Juanita held the keenest; that deadly plain-speaking.

His subtle training had taught him to sink self so completely that it was easy to him to insinuate his mind into the thoughts of another; to understand them, almost to sympathise with them. But Juanita puzzled him.

There is no face so baffling as that which a woman shows the world when she is hiding her heart.

"I spoke as a friend," said Mon, "when I recommended you to allow me to escort you to Pampeluna."

"I know that you always speak as a friend," answered Juanita quietly, "... of mine. Not of Marcos, perhaps."

"Ah, but your friends are Marcos'," said Mon, with a suggestion of raillery in his voice.

"And his enemies are mine," she retorted, looking straight in front of her.

"Of course--is it not written in the marriage service?" Mon laughingly turned in his chair and cast a glance up at the windows as he spoke. They were beyond earshot of the house. "But why should I be an enemy of Marcos de Sarrion?"

Then Juanita unmasked her guns.

"Because he outwitted you and married me," she answered.

"For your money--"

"Yes, for my money. He was quite honest about it, I a.s.sure you. He told me that it was a matter of business--of politics. That was the word he used."

"He told you that?" asked Mon in real surprise.

Juanita nodded her head. She was looking at her own slipper again and the moving foot within it. There was a mystic little smile at the corner of her lips which tilted upwards there, as humorous and tender lips nearly always do. It suggested that she knew something which even Evasio Mon, the all-wise, did not know.

"And you believed him?" inquired Mon, dimly groping at the meaning of the smile.

"He told me that it was the only way of escaping you ... and the rest of them ... and Religion," answered Juanita--without answering the question.

"And you believed him?" repeated Mon, which was a mistake; for she turned on him at once and answered,

"Yes."

Mon shrugged his shoulders with the tolerant air of one who has met defeat time after time; who expected naught else perhaps.

"Then there is nothing more to be said," he observed carelessly. "You elect to remain at Torre Garda. I bow to your decision, my child. I have warned you."

"Against Marcos?"

Mon shrugged his shoulders a second time.

"And in reply to your warning," said Juanita slowly. "I will tell you that Marcos has never done or said anything unworthy of a Spanish gentleman--and there is no better gentleman in the world."

Which statement all men will a.s.suredly be ready to admit.

Mon turned and looked at her with an odd smile.

"Ah!" he said. "You have fallen in love with Marcos."

Juanita changed colour and her eyes suddenly lighted with anger.

"I am not afraid of anything you may say or do," she said. "I have Marcos. Marcos has always outwitted you when you have come in contact with him. Marcos is cleverer than you. He is stronger."

She paused. Mon was slowly drawing his gloves through his hands which were white and smooth.

"That is the difference between you," she continued. "You wear gloves.

Marcos takes hold of life with his bare hand. You may be more cunning, but Marcos outwits you. The mind seeks but the heart finds. Your mind may be subtle--but Marcos has a better heart."

Mon had risen. He stood with his face half turned away from her so that she could only see his profile. And for a moment she was sorry for him; that one moment which always mars an earthly victory.

He turned away from her and walked slowly towards the library window which stood open and gave pa.s.sage to the sound of moving cups and saucers. We all carry with us through life the remembrance of certain words probably forgotten by the speaker. A few bear the keener, sharper memory of words unspoken. Juanita never forgot the silence of Evasio Mon as he walked away from her.

A moment later she heard him laughing and talking in the library.

He had come on horseback and Sarrion accompanied him to the stables on his departure. They were both young for their years. The Spaniards of the north are thin and lithe and long-lived. Sarrion offered his hand for Mon's knee, who with this aid sprang into the saddle.

He turned and looked towards the terrace.

"Juanita," he said, and paused. "She is no longer a child. One hopes that she may have a happy life ... seeing that so many do not."