“Now begins the most critical time in this adventure of yours. Don Ramón,” the Cherub went on. “You see, as our place is only five miles outside Seville, we know many people; and [pg 209]though Carmona is seldom there with his mother, he certainly has acquaintances, and some of them may be ours too. You have travelled since Burgos as my son, though you wore his uniform only for two days; but you may be sure Carmona has been looking forward to shaking you off, once and for all, if you should venture to Seville to see the show of Semana Santa as other tourists see it.”
“He perhaps thinks that, because of our promise—which we've kept—he's shaken Ramón off already,” said Dick.
“He knows better. The trick answered for a few hours; but his car broke down, and he had to accept our help. He said then that fate was against him; I heard it; and Carmona's a man to be actually superstitious about you, now. So far, he's kept the little señorita out of touch with you, but that's nearly all he has accomplished.”
“Thanks to you both,” I cut in. “If it hadn't been for your help, I should have been ‘pinched,’ and hustled over the border long ago. I see that now; and though I should have come back and begun the chase again somehow, it would have been a thousand times more difficult.”
“No use bothering about what might have happened,” laughed Pilar. “Let's think of what did happen—and what will.”
“Nevertheless,” said I, “the thought's often in my mind; what if we had missed Colonel and Miss O'Donnel at Burgos?”
Dick chuckled; and when Pilar wanted to know what amused him, asked my permission to tell. I gave him leave; and with a memory for detail which I could have spared, to say nothing of an attempt at mimicry, he repeated, word for word, my objections to meeting the Irish friends of Angèle de la Mole.
We were so intimate now that my point of view before knowing them did seem particularly comic, and Dick made the most of it.
“Well, think what we have to thank you for!” exclaimed Pilar; “this delightful trip. If it hadn't been for you, Cristóbal would be here instead of with Angèle in Biarritz.”
[pg 210] “Come back to common sense,” implored the Cherub, “and help me plan for the Cristóbal who is here. If he sits in our box for the processions, Carmona will see him and say to some officious person, very different from Rafael Calmenare, ‘who is that young man with the O'Donnels?’ And the officious person will answer, ‘I never saw him in my life.’ ‘Ah,’ the Duke will exclaim, ‘isn't he Cristóbal O'Donnel?’ ‘Not at all,’ will come the reply; and Carmona will proceed to make trouble.”