‘I know but one,’ was the guarded reply.
‘And I also,’ said Larralde, flicking the ash from his cigarette. ‘A young fellow who has made himself somewhat notorious in the Royalist cause—a cause in which I admit I have no sympathy. His name is Conyngham.’
Then a silence fell upon the two men, and over raised glasses they glanced surreptitiously at each other.
‘I know him,’ said Sir John at length, and the tone of his voice made Larralde glance up with a sudden gleam in his eyes. There thus sprang into existence between them the closest of all bonds—a common foe.
‘The man has done me more than one ill-turn,’ said Larralde after a pause, and he drummed on the table with his cigarette-stained fingers.
Sir John, looking at him, coldly gauged the Spaniard with the deadly skill of his calling. He noted that Larralde was poor and ambitious—qualities that often raise the devil in a human heart when fate brings them there together. He was not deceived by the picturesque manner of Julia’s lover, but knew exactly how much was assumed of that air of simple vanity to which Larralde usually treated strangers. He probably gauged at one glance the depth of the man’s power for good or ill, his sincerity, his possible usefulness. In the hands of Sir John Pleydell, Larralde was the merest tool.
They sat until long after midnight, and before they parted Sir John Pleydell handed to his companion a roll of notes, which he counted carefully and Larralde accepted with a grand air of condescension and indifference.
‘You know my address,’ said Sir John, with a slight suggestion of masterfulness which had not been noticeable before the money changed hands. ‘I shall remain at the same hotel.’
Larralde nodded his head.
‘I shall remember it,’ he said. ‘And now I go to take a few hours’ rest. I have had a hard day, and am as tired as a shepherd’s dog.’