"Sailing qualities may not have been fairly tested," admitted Sir Manuel, "since the sea was serene, the sky brilliant, and the breeze insufficient to ruffle the water."
"The more charming, Monsieur!" exclaimed the guest, whose mood after a pleasing day was mellow and complacent.
Blanco waved Monsieur Breuillard to an easy chair and pointed out cigars. As chance would have it, he stood before the door, which he had just closed.
"By the way—Your Grace—" He broke off abruptly to mark the effect of the title on the other man. Evidently he found it highly pleasing for he smiled as the Dreamer winced and came violently to his feet, pale and rigid, but as yet too astounded for speech.
"I did not tell you, did I," went on the Spaniard, "that I have been Sir Manuel Blanco only a few days, and that the title was conferred on me by your royal kinsman, Karyl of Galavia, for a trifling service in confounding his enemies? Before that I was a matador in Andalusia."
Delgado stood petrified, his features livid and his eyes blazing with rage. An instinct warned him that to surrender to passion would be only to trap himself more deeply. The man blocking the door filled its breadth with his strong shoulders. Louis turned his head and his eyes caught through the open porthole a glimpse of the receding shore-line of the Riviera. Blanco followed the glance and smiled.
"We shall be losing shore in a short time," he calmly announced. "May I have the honor of showing Your Grace to your stateroom?"
On the next evening Benton emerged from his rooms at the Grand Palace Hotel in Puntal, and threading his way through the loungers on the galleries, sought out a remote corner of the garden, where, under a blossom-freighted vine, he could hear the surge of the sea, and, in a tempered softness, the Viennese waltz of the hotel band. Under him the harbor mirrored lights along the shore and those of ships at anchor. At a distance the windows of the Palace could be seen.