The interview with Sarita excited me greatly, and I was too much engrossed by the thoughts of it to be able to bear with equanimity a second edition of Madame Chansette; so that when that dear and most amiable of women came to me, I pleaded an engagement and left the house.
As I passed through the hall there was a trifling incident, to which at the moment I paid very little heed. A couple of men were standing in whispered conference by the door and did not notice my approach until the servant made them aware of it. Then they drew aside, one with the deference of a superior servant, the other with a quite different air. He looked at me very keenly and apparently with profound interest, then drew aside with a very elaborate bow and exclaimed:
"Senor, it is an honour."
This drew my attention to him, and I set him down for an eccentric and gave him a salute as well as a pretty sharp look. He was a long-visaged, sharp-eyed, high-strung individual, moderately well-dressed, the most noticeable feature in my eyes being the exaggerated courtesy, not to say obsequiousness, of his manner toward me. I dismissed the matter with a smile, however, and went back to my thoughts of Sarita and her affairs.
I walked back slowly to my hotel revolving them, and while I was standing in the hall a few moments, was surprised to see the man I had noticed at Madame Chansette's house walk past the hotel on the opposite side of the street. For a moment this annoyed me. It looked uncommonly as if he had followed me, and although I tried to laugh at the incident as a mere absurdity, or coincidence, or at worst a result of the fellow's eccentricity, I was not entirely successful; and now and again during the rest of the day it recurred to me, to start always an unpleasant series of conjectures.
The truth was, Sarita's involvement with these confounded Carlists, the extraordinary connection between her and the man who had prepared that welcome for me to Madrid, and the conviction fast settling down upon me that she was rushing full steam and all sails set on the rocks, had got on my nerves; and I was quite disposed to believe the fellow had followed me intentionally, and that the episode was a part of that spyism she had declared so prevalent.
In the evening Mayhew dined with me, and after dinner I took possession of some rooms he had found for me in the Calle Mayor; and the bustle of getting my things in order and the chatter with him served to relieve the strain of my thoughts. But he was quick enough to see something was amiss with me and would have questioned me had I given him the slightest encouragement.
The next morning brought another disquieting incident. I walked to the Embassy, and Mayhew joined me on the Plaza Mutor and we went on together. As we stood in the doorway the spy—as in my thoughts I had begun to term him—passed the end of the building, paused a moment to look in my direction, and then went on.
"What is it, Carbonnell?" asked Mayhew, seeing me start.
"Nothing, old man; at least nothing yet; if it turns into something, I'll speak to you about it," and not wishing him to have any clue I wheeled about and went in.