I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; but suddenly a light flashed in his eyes.
“There is one thing you could do for me—you and no one else,” he said. “But I have no right to ask it.”
“Tell me what it is,” I implored.
“I would not, if it didn’t mean more than my life to me.” He hesitated, and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together—one or two I had taught him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a diplomatic career.
They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I—remembering the warder—almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious.
“That is forbidden,” he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. “What language was that?”
“Spanish,” I answered. “He only bade me good-bye. We have been—very dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but—it’s over now. It was natural he shouldn’t want you to hear his last words to me.”
“Nevertheless, it is forbidden,” repeated the warder obstinately, “and though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and must be reported.”
With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist—oh, I could have killed the creature with my own hands—I think!
As for Ivor, he said not another word, except “good-bye,” smiling half sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as plainly as if he had spoken: “Remember, I know you won’t fail me.”