Part 29 (1/2)

”From whom?”

”Ah!”

”You will not tell me?”

”My dear man, I cannot. The smell of printing ink is not good for a man's morals. Leave me my unsullied honour.”

The Count had lighted his cigarette. He looked keenly at his companion's deeply-lined face, and the blue smoke floated between them.

”There are not many people who could have written that article,” he said. ”For the few English who know Spain like that are known to the natives. And no Spaniard would have dared to write it.”

John Craik laughed, and while he was laughing his eyes were grave and full of keen observation.

”Then you admit that it is true,” he said.

”Yes,” answered the Count; ”it is true--all of it. The writer knows my country as few Englishmen--or WOMEN know it.”

John Craik was leaning back in his deep chair an emaciated, pain- stricken form. His calm grey eyes met the quick glance, and did not fall nor waver.

”Then you will not tell me?”

”No. But why are you so anxious to know?”

The Count smoked for a few seconds in silence.

”I will tell you,” he said suddenly, ”in confidence.”

Craik nodded, and settled himself again in his chair. He was a very fidgety man.

”It is not the first article that I care about,” explained De Lloseta. ”It is that which is behind it. This”--he laid his hand on the page--”is my own country, the north and east of Spain, the wildest part of the Peninsula, the home of the Catalonians, who have always been the leaders in strife and warfare. It is the country from whence my family has its source. All that is written about Catalonia or the Baleares must necessarily refer in part to me and mine. This writer may know too much.”

”I think,” said John Craik, ”that I can guarantee that if the writer does know too much, the Commentator shall not be the channel through which the knowledge will reach the public.”

”Thanks; but--can you guarantee it? Can you guarantee that the public interest, being aroused by these articles, may not ask for further details, which details might easily be given elsewhere, in something less--respectable--than the Commentator?”

”My dear sir, one would think you had a crime on your conscience.”

Cipriani de Lloseta smiled--such a smile as John Craik had never seen before.

”I have many,” he answered. ”Who has not?”

”Yes; they acc.u.mulate as life goes on, do they not?”

”What I fear,” went on De Lloseta, ”is the idle gossip which obtains in England under the pleasant t.i.tle of 'Society Notes,' 'Boudoir Chat,' and other new-fangled vulgarities. In Spain we have not that.”

”Then Spain is the Promised Land.”

”Your Society journalists may talk of the English n.o.bility, though the aristocracy that fills the 'Society Notes' is almost invariably the aristocracy of yesterday. But I want to keep the Spanish families out of it if possible--the names that were there before printing was invented.”

”Printing and education are too cheap nowadays,” said John Craik.