"No."
Marcos paused for a moment, looking from the window across the valley to the pine-clad heights with thoughtful eyes. He held odd views--now deemed chivalrous and old-fashioned--on the question of a woman's liberty to seek her own happiness in her own way. Such views are unnecessary to-day when woman is, so to speak, up and fighting. They belong to the days of our grandmothers, who had less knowledge and much more wisdom; for they knew that it is always more profitable to receive a gift than demand a right. The measure will be fuller.
"No. Not unless it is her own wish," he said.
Sarrion made no answer. In human difficulties there is usually nothing to be said. There is nearly always one clear course to steer and the deviations are only found by too much talk and too much licence given to crooked minds. If happiness is not to be found in the straight way nothing is gained by turning into by-paths to seek it. A few find it and a great number are not unhappy who have seen it down a side-path and have yet held their course in the straight way.
"Will you keep him in the library--make the excuse that the sun is too hot on the verandah--until I am gone?" said Marcos. "I will follow and, at all events, see that she arrives safely at Pampeluna."
Sarrion gave a curt laugh.
"We may be able," he said, "to turn to good account Evasio's conviction that you are ill in bed, when in reality you are in the saddle."
"He will soon find out."
"Of course--but in the meantime..."
"Yes," said Marcos with a slow smile ... "in the meantime." He left the room as he spoke, but turned on the threshold to look back over his shoulder. His eyes were alight with anger and the smile had lapsed into a grin.