Benicia smiled, a little bitterly. "Yes," she said, "I know that the man who is so rash as to attempt it in this country is usually recalled in disgrace. Still, it is not a thing that happens very frequently. Dom Clemente is to be made the scapegoat."
"I think," said the man gravely, "I may be strong enough to save him that. It is possible, as I have told him, that he will be recalled—but what he has done will stand."
He spoke at last as a ruler, with authority, and a trace of sternness in his eyes, but his face changed again.
"Señorita," he said, "if it happens, I think you will not grudge it, or blame me."
The girl saw the opportunity she had been waiting for. "As you have admitted, you owe my father something, and now you have asked something more. Is it not conceivable that you owe me a little, too. I am an influence here—and it would be different in Lisbon if Dom Clemente was sent home again. Besides, sometimes he will listen to me. Now and then a woman has made a change in a man's policy, and, though it is a little more difficult when the man is one's father, it might be done again."
"Ah," said her companion, "you wish to make a bargain."
"It would be too great a condescension, Señor," and Benicia laughed. "I want a promise that is to be unconditional. Some day, perhaps, I shall ask you to do something for me. Then you will do it whatever it is."
The man looked up at her with a little dry smile, but, as he admitted, he owed her father a good deal, and he was not too old for gallantry. Besides that, he had the gift of insight, and a curious confidence in this girl. He felt she would not ask him anything that was not fitting.
"The request," he said, "is a little vague, and perhaps, I am a trifle rash, but I almost think I can promise that what you ask shall be done."
Benicia, reaching out from the hammock, touched him with her fan. "Now," she said, "I know what you think of me. How shall I make my poor acknowledgments? Still, there is another thing. You will discover presently that the brooms of the State are slow. There are two men not among its servants who have commenced the sweeping already. I think Dom Clemente knows this, but you will not mention it to him."