“Who is there to tell him, por Dios? I won’t. You won’t.”
“But you forget a third, Don Tiburcio. I mean the man who was with you several evenings ago, when you––”
“When I was carrying off the padre’s sweetheart?”
“When somehow you two happened in this desolate neighborhood. Since you took his name out of my mouth just 180now, you must have recognized that it was His Majesty whom you saw talking to her almost where she now lies. I was near by, guarding his privacy, but you both escaped before I could stop you. Now then, who was that other intruder?”
The other was Rodrigo Galán, but Tiburcio replied, “The other will not have much to say. Poor Captain Maurel!”
“Bueno, bueno!”
“Not yet, mi coronel. Only we two know of Maximilian’s part in this, but we must keep it from her father above all others. I am a loyal Imperialist, Don Miguel.”
“What difference does that make?”
“The Empire faces a crisis.”
The royal favorite started guiltily. Since the news of the Confederacy’s surrender, Lopez’s ambitions were clouded by a growing fear of the fugitive Mexican republic. The Republic would have a good memory for royal favorites, and he had been thinking on it. “Will Lee’s surrender make such–such a difference?” he faltered.