Virginia’s blue eyes twinkled. “He didn’t consent to any such thing,” she said demurely. “He didn’t have any idea that I desired to see President Felix, or that I had the slightest interest in him. He supposed that my anxiety to inspect the dungeons was prompted solely by morbid curiosity.”
“Still, I can’t understand his being so rash as to let you in there,” said Hawley.
The girl’s face dimpled. “He couldn’t help himself; I called his bluff,” she announced, laughing apologetically at her own frank use of American slang.
“His bluff?”
“Like most of his countrymen, Captain Reyes has the habit of indulging in very extravagant language when he is talking to women,” Miss Throgmorton explained naïvely. “One evening when he was at our house he was assuring me, with his hand on his heart, of his readiness to lay down his life for me, and I laughed at his protestations and told him that in my native land that brand of talk was known as ‘hot air.’ He urged me to put him to the test, and, after pretending to consider for a while, I told him that I wouldn’t ask him to risk his life, but that if he really wanted to show that he was willing to take chances for my sake, he could do so by taking me on a tour of inspection through El Torro prison.”
Hawley chuckled. “Clever work! You knew, then, that President Felix was there?”
“I had heard the rumor, and I thought it was a good chance to find out whether it was true. I could see that poor Captain Reyes was startled by my request. He protested that it was against the rules to admit visitors to El Torro. He begged me to put him to some other test. But I insisted that it must be that or nothing. I taunted him with being afraid to take a chance, and at last I got the poor man so worked up that he gritted his teeth and said that he would do it, no matter what the consequences might be.”
“Good for him!” said Hawley. “He must be a pretty plucky chap.”
“He is no coward,” said the girl soberly. “I hated to demand such a sacrifice of him; for although I didn’t let him know it, I realized that I was making him do something which, if he had been caught, would have meant the ruin of his career—and, perhaps, worse. But it was for a good cause, and I considered myself justified. Anyway,” she added brightly, “thank goodness, nothing like that happened.”
“He got away with it, all right?”