Part 14 (2/2)
”My old chap,” he said. ”I would have a speech with you.”
He slapped Roland again on the shoulder.
”The others they say, 'Break it with Senor Bleke gently.' Maraquita say 'Break it with Senor Bleke gently.' So I break it with you gently.”
He dealt Roland a third stupendous punch. Whatever was to be broken gently, it was plain to Roland that it was not himself. And suddenly there came to him a sort of intuition that told him that Bombito was nervous.
”After all you have done for us, Senor Bleke, we shall seem to you ungrateful bounders, but what is it? Yes? No? I shouldn't wonder, perhaps. The whole fact is that there has been political crisis in Paranoya. Upset. Apple-cart. Yes? You follow? No? The Ministry have been--what do you say?--put through it. Expelled. Broken up. No more ministry. New ministry wanted. To conciliate royalist party, that is the cry. So deputation of leading persons, mighty good chaps, prominent merchants and that sort of bounder, call upon us. They offer me to be President. See? No? Yes? That's right. I am ambitious blighter, Senor Bleke. What about it, no? I accept. I am new President of Paranoya. So no need for your kind a.s.sistance. Royalist revolution up the spout. No more royalist revolution.”
The wave of relief which swept over Roland ebbed sufficiently after an interval to enable him to think of some one but himself. He was not fond of Maraquita, but he had a tender heart, and this, he felt, would kill the poor girl.
”But Maraquita----?”
”That's all right, splendid old chap. No need to worry about Maraquita, stout old boy. Where the husband goes, so does the wife go. As you say, whither thou goes will I follow. No?”
”But I don't understand. Maraquita is not your wife?”
”Why, certainly, good old heart. What else?”
”Have you been married to her all the time?”
”Why, certainly, good, dear boy.”
The room swam before Roland's eyes. There was no room in his mind for meditations on the perfidy of woman. He groped forward and found Bombito's hand.
”By Jove,” he said thickly, as he wrung it again and again, ”I knew you were a good sort the first time I saw you. Have a drink or something.
Have a cigar or something. Have something, anyway, and sit down and tell me all about it.”
THE EPISODE OF THE HIRED PAST
Final Story of the Series [First published in _Pictorial Review_, October 1916]
”What do you mean--you can't marry him after all? After all what? Why can't you marry him? You are perfectly childish.”
Lord Evenwood's gentle voice, which had in its time lulled the House of Peers to slumber more often than any voice ever heard in the Gilded Chamber, had in it a note of unwonted, but quite justifiable, irritation. If there was one thing more than another that Lord Evenwood disliked, it was any interference with arrangements already made.
”The man,” he continued, ”is not unsightly. The man is not conspicuously vulgar. The man does not eat peas with his knife. The man p.r.o.nounces his aitches with meticulous care and accuracy. The man, moreover, is worth rather more than a quarter of a million pounds. I repeat, you are childis.h.!.+”
”Yes, I know he's a very decent little chap, Father,” said Lady Eva.
”It's not that at all.”
”I should be gratified, then, to hear what, in your opinion, it is.”
”Well, do you think I could be happy with him?”
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