"You must not leave us too soon," she said, and then paused and examined her plate attentively. I was about to answer her, when her attention was attracted by her neighbour on her right, and I was accordingly left to my own thoughts.
I looked down the long table, glittering with glass and plate, and as I did so, I endeavoured to apprize the value of my extraordinary position. Who at that board could have guessed the errand in Equinata of the man whom, doubtless, so many of them envied for his wealth and for his magnificent floating home? I could not help wondering what my own feelings would have been had I known only three months or so before, when I was standing watch as a mail-boat officer, that in a few short weeks I should be the honoured guest of the President of the Republic of Equinata, and the presumptive owner of a yacht valued at upwards of a hundred thousand pounds.
I looked across the room and examined the pictures hanging upon the walls. That exactly opposite me riveted my attention. I felt that I could not be mistaken as to the likeness. It was the portrait of Don Guzman de Silvestre, and the artist had managed to depict him to the life. How it called me back to other days! As I looked at it, I seemed to be sitting in the old inn garden at Falstead, listening to his instructions for the campaign, and wondering how long Molly would be at the choir practice.
"You have suddenly become very silent, Señor Trevelyan," said the Señorita, rousing me from my reverie.
"I was thinking that I shall often look back with pleasure upon this evening," I replied.
The look she gave me would probably have encouraged many men to embark on a course of the maddest flirtation. I, however, was adamant.
"In reality," she said, "I suppose you are like all the other visitors we have, and, as soon as you are away from Equinata, you will forget us altogether."
"I assure you I shall never forget your beautiful city as long as I live," I answered, and with more truth than she imagined.
She threw a quick glance at me and then, looking down the dinner-table, gave the signal to the ladies to rise. I must confess here that the Señorita interested me very strangely. At first I had thought her merely a very beautiful woman, well fitted by nature to perform the difficult task asked of her; it was not long, however, before I came to have a somewhat better understanding of her real abilities. In what light I regard her now, you will be able to realize for yourself when you have read my story.
As had been arranged, three days after the dinner I have just described, I accompanied the President and a considerable party to the famous copper mines in the mountain range that began behind the city and extended well-nigh to the further limit of the Republic. We were only absent three days, yet in that short space of time I was permitted an opportunity of studying the real character and personality of Equinata's ruler more closely than I had yet done. At first I must confess I had been prepared to dislike him, but little by little, so gradually indeed that I scarcely noticed the change, I found that he was managing to overcome my prejudices. Under the influence of these new impressions I also began to see my own part of the business in a new light. From what Silvestre had said to me, I had up to that time regarded him as a traitor to his friends, and as a tyrant and enemy to his country. I now discovered that he was neither the one nor the other. He ruled according to his lights, and if he held his people in an iron grip, it was for the good and sufficient reason that he knew their character, and the sort of government they required. My own position, when I came to overhaul it properly, I discovered to be by no means edifying. I accepted his hospitality and his kindnesses, yet I was only waiting my chance to prove myself a traitor of the worst kind. I was posing as his friend, yet at the same time was preparing to prove myself his worst enemy. Such thoughts as these kept me company by day and night, and made me regard myself with a contempt such as I had never dreamed of before. And yet I knew that, at any hazard, I must go through with it. Had I not taken Silvestre's money and pledged myself to serve him? Therefore I could not draw back.