"I have not seen him since the day on the mountain," returned Manuel.
"He has, in you, a very true friend."
"Your Majesty, I am his servant," deprecated the toreador.
"If I had friends like you," she smiled, "it would matter little what they called themselves. And yet, if there is but one like you, I had rather that that one be with him. I want you to go to him now and remain with him."
"Your Majesty, Señor Benton left me here to watch for recurring dangers. I am now satisfied that nothing threatens, at least for the present. I might, as Your Majesty suggests, better be with him."
"Yes—yes—with him!" she eagerly agreed; then her voice took on the timbre of anxiety. "I am afraid. Sometimes I am afraid for him. He is not a coward, but there are times when we all become weak. I appoint you, Sir Manuel—" the girl smiled wanly—"I appoint you my Ambassador to be with him and watch after him—and, Sir Manuel—" her voice shook a little with very deep feeling—"I am giving you the office I had rather have than all the thrones in Christendom! Will you accept it?"
She held out her hand, and taking it reverently in his own, the Andalusian bowed low over it. He did not kneel, for now he was the Ambassador in the presence of his Sovereign. "With all the Saints for my witnesses," he declared fervently, "I swear it to Your Majesty."
There was gratitude in her eyes as they met the whole-heartedness of the pledge in his. For a moment she seemed unable to speak, though there was no dimness of tear-mist in her pupils. She stood very upright and silent, and her breathing was deep. Then slowly her hands came up and loosened the flower at her breast.
"The King has decorated you, Sir Manuel," she said. "I don't think Mr. Benton would care for knighthood—and I could not confer it—but sometime—not now—some day after you have both departed from Galavia, give him this. Tell him it may have a message which I may not put in words. If he can read the heart of a rose deeply enough, perhaps he can find it there."
When Blanco had carefully folded the emblem of his embassy in paper and deposited it in his breast pocket, she gave him her hand again, and, turning, went out through the same door that she had entered.