“Heaven knows what the next move will be,” I commented, when the avenger had gone, not too stricken in spirit. “It begins to look as though the enemy would stick at little, and we can’t go on giving tit for tat.”
“He won’t take open action against you for the present,” said the Cherub, “as he isn’t sure you aren’t Cristóbal O’Donnel; and you’re warned if he tries to strike in the dark. He’s probably found out through the Ministry of War that Cristóbal’s on leave, so to rid himself of your company he’s resorted to the only means which occurred to him.”
“I have to thank you that he had no surer means,” I said.
“It’s the fashion in Spain, if a friend wants a thing, to tell him it is his,” replied Colonel O’Donnel. “You wanted me for a father, Pilar for a sister. I said, ‘We are yours.’ There’s not much to be thankful for. I would do ten times more for your father’s son; and my confessor’s a sympathetic man. Besides, to tell you a secret of mine which even Pilar doesn’t know, though she has most others at her finger-end, your mother was my first love. I adored her! You have her eyes!”
Whereupon I shook hands with the Cherub.
XVIII
THE MAN WHO LOVED PILAR
When Ropes had gone to send a telegram to Paris, Dick and I talked the matter over from so many points of view, that Colonel O’Donnel apparently went to sleep. It was only when I burst into vituperation against Carmona, that the excellent man suddenly showed signs of life.
“I’ve been thinking,” said he, and I found myself cheering up at the statement; for I had noticed that, though the Cherub often had the air of being silent through laziness; that from his mellifluous Andaluz he discarded all possible consonants as he would discard the bones of fish; yet, with his murmurings, invariably rolled from his tongue some jewel of good sense.
“We have a friend near Madrid,” said he, “who has an automobile. I know little about such things; but when I heard that you had a twenty-four horse-power Gloria, I thought, ‘It is the same as the Conde de Roldan’s.’ It will be days before your new parts can come from Paris, even if you send Ropes; and there are few automobiles on sale here, if any. It’s a hundred chances to one you could get parts to fit your car in that way. But if Don Cipriano’s car is what I think, he will give you what you want. When the new parts arrive, they will be for him.”
“Colonel O’Donnel,” said Dick, “you and your family are bricks!”
“That’s true,” said I; “but if you could persuade your friend to such an act of generosity, I couldn’t accept. I—”
“Oh,” said the good man, with cherubic slyness, “he would give his left hand for such a chance to please us! Perhaps you haven’t noticed that my _nina_ is rather attractive; but it has not escaped the observation of Don Cipriano.”
So the wind blew from that quarter! I threw a glance at Dick, and saw on his face the same expression of disconcerted _amour propre_ I had once seen when a bullet went whistling by his nose. But he said nothing about either missile; and now it was left for me to justify our appreciation of the señorita.
Ordinarily, if there is one thing which the Cherub loves, it is to dawdle, but now he rose without a sigh and remarked that there was no time to waste. He must fetch Pilar.
“She will have gone to bed,” I objected.
The Cherub smiled. Pilar go to bed at half-past ten on her first night in Madrid after months of absence? Not she. Her father was willing to bet that she was at her window looking down upon the street, and wishing she had been born a man that she might be in it. “Night is the time for amusement in Madrid,” said he. “One can lie in bed till afternoon without missing anything; but at night—that is the time to be alive here! And though our home is in the southern country, when we are in Madrid my Pilar and I, we are true Madrileños. Had she and I been alone, she would have made me take her to the theatre or circus. We should not have got home till one: and then I should have had to give her supper. Oh, she will be enchanted when I call her back to life!”
With that he trotted off, and before it seemed that he could have explained anything, he had brought Pilar to us in triumph, her hat on her head, dimples in her cheeks, and stars in her eyes. “I’m ready!” she exclaimed.
“Ready?” I echoed. “For what?”
“Why to drive with you all to Don Cipriano’s! What else? We mustn’t lose a minute, or our bad fairy will have time to work some other evil charm before we’ve remedied the first. Oh, I may be only a girl, and not of importance; but Don Cipriano thinks me important, and I shall have to be there to make smiles at him. He has a Gloria, and it is twenty-four horse-power. Father sent to order a carriage while I put on my hat and coat. Don Cipriano’s place is only half an hour out of Madrid, even with a ‘simón.’ He breeds horses, and oh, such dogs! Come along—come along!”
“At this time of night?” said Dick. “He’ll think we’re mad!”
“It’s always early till to-morrow morning in Madrid,” laughed Pilar. “Ah, how nice to have an excitement!”
“He won’t be at home,” said Dick.
“Yes, he will. San Cristóbal will keep him there.”
Before we knew what we were doing, this small Spanish whirlwind had swept us downstairs in her train, into the vehicle which had actually arrived, and out into the midst of a night-scene as lively as a fair. Many shops were open and brilliantly illuminated. Café windows blazed like diamonds; half the population of Madrid was in the streets, and a stranger might have thought that something unusual had happened; but Pilar assured us it was “always like that.” “You can live in the street if you like, in Madrid,” said she, “and I should think lots of quite charming people do. There are sweets and fruit when you’re hungry, and water and wine and fresh milk of goats when you’re thirsty, cool doorways or nice hot pavements to sleep on when you’re tired, with lettuce leaves or a cabbage for a pillow, all at a cost of a penny or two a day; and if you’re clever somebody passing by will give you that penny. So, rich or poor, with a palace or no home, you can be happy in Madrid.”
“I wonder how you’d like New York?” muttered Dick.
“That depends on the person I lived with!” said Pilar.
Soon we had left the gold and crimson glow of the streets, and were out in the blue night. Over the Puente de Toledo we passed, and on along a broad white road.
Pilar had said that we would reach our destination in half an hour; but her enthusiasm ran faster than our horses; and it was nearly midnight when we stopped in front of a tall archway that glimmered in the dark. A clanging bell had to be pulled, and was echoed by a musical baying of many dogs. “The darlings!” exclaimed Pilar. “I know their voices. It’s Melampo, and Cubillon, and Lubina, the dearest pets of all; named after the dogs who went with the shepherds to see the Christ-child in His cradle—you remember—so they can never go mad.”
By this time the gate was open, and a wave of beautiful greyhounds surged round us, although called imperatively back by a man who looked like a cross between a porter and a gamekeeper. Then came a cordial burst of recognition between the Cherub, Pilar, and the servant. We drove into a courtyard, and before we could descend from our carriage the master of the house had appeared at a lighted doorway, tall, brown, ruddy, picturesque in Spanish riding breeches and short coat; a handsome man of thirty-five, perhaps, whose face lit from surprise to rapture at sight of Pilar. Dick and I came in for a welcome too, though I could see that the Conde de Roldan was not easy in his mind about these young men who seemed on terms of intimacy with his friends.
From the courtyard we passed through a doorway into a patio, and from the _patio_ into a nondescript room which could have belonged to no one but a bachelor and a sportsman. There was, however, a mother, and the poor lady would have been torn from her bed to greet the welcome ones, had not the father and daughter protested. To-morrow, if all went well, they would come again, and see dear Doña Rosita; but now, let her sleep. We were here on business.
“May I explain you?” Pilar appealed to me. “Don Cipriano is safe. And I want him to be interested.”
Poor Don Cipriano! He had visibly a bad half moment, trembling lest we had rushed out to announce my engagement to the adorable Pilarcita; but it was good to see the light come back to his eyes when he heard that I—blind worm—had fallen in love with another girl. Clever Pilarcita made this fact clear, so that Don Cipriano’s jealous heart might warm to me before he knew what thing was wanted. Dick became tolerable also, as a friend following in the train of my adventures; and soon the poor fellow was ready to put not only the gearing of his motor-car, but his house and everything in it, at our service.
He blessed his patron saint for bringing us to his door, and for permitting him to have ridden home from a distant farm in time to greet us; he roundly cursed the Duke of Carmona, consigning him to Purgatory for a longer period than usual; and when everyone of us (except Dick) was in the best of humours with everybody else, we paid a visit to his car.