"'Well, I will play you for them, if you like. Hang it, my dear sir, I am in luck at this moment, and I will not let fortune escape me while I hold her.'
"'I have nothing more to stake, sir, and you know it,' I said in a loud and haughty voice. 'I do not understand what you are alluding to.'
"To this he replied, without seeming in the least disconcerted, 'You love Doña Isabella Izaguirre?'
"'How does that concern you?'
"'If I may believe public rumour, you are to marry her in a few days,' he continued calmly. 'Well, I too love Doña Isabel, and I have made up my mind she shall be mine by fair means or foul.'
"'And?' I interrupted him violently.
"'And, if you like, I will stake these eighteen hundred thousand piastres against her hand. You see that I appreciate her value,' he added, as he carelessly lit his panatellas.
"'Canario! A splendid game! What a magnificent stake! A man cannot act more gallantly!' Such were the remarks made around me by the witnesses of this scene.
"'You hesitate?' Don Pacheco asked me in his ironical way.
"I looked defiantly round me, but no one accepted my challenge.