[pg 345] “You've done splendidly,” I assured him. “I'll get out with Mr. Waring and stretch my legs.”
I was glad to walk, and still more glad to feel that instead of being exhausted as Dick had prophesied, strength seemed coming back. As we strolled up and down, so sure was I of Dick's sympathy that I began to talk about my hopes and fears. He did not disappoint me, but once or twice he answered absent-mindedly, with a far-off look in his eyes, and suddenly, with a pang of remorse, I remembered that I had not once referred to the progress of his love affairs. My own had preoccupied me to the exclusion of everything outside, and I had spoken of Pilar's only in connection with Monica.
Anathematizing myself aloud as an ungrateful and ungracious brute, I asked if Pilar had made up her mind.
“You needn't blame yourself,” he said. “All this time she's kept me on tenter-hooks, because, though she admitted liking me, she couldn't reconcile her heart with her conscience. I got the dear old Cherub's blessing, and flaunted it in her face; but that wasn't enough. I also argued that it was her duty to marry me and try to make me as good as herself, but she seemed to think it might work out the other way. Then you disappeared, and the last word she said was that if I found you, she'd take it as a sign that San Cristóbal wanted the match; seems he's a matchmaking saint, when he's in Spain, as well as a motoring one. So, you see, she'll have to keep her promise now; and I'll owe my happiness to you.”
“I haven't come back to life in vain, then,” I said. “It will be a good moment for me, whatever happens, when I see my little sister Pilar again.”
“She'll be at the royal bull-fight,” Dick sighed.
“I thought she hated bull-fights—for Vivillo's sake.”
“It's for Vivillo's sake she's going. She's moved heaven and earth to get invitations.”
“And she's succeeded.”
“Thereby hangs a tale. But I'm not going to bother you with it.”