So Juanita and Evasio Mon were left alone on the terrace. Juanita was sitting rather upright in a garden chair. The only seat near to her was the easy chair just vacated by Cousin Peligros. Mon looked at it. He glanced at Juanita and then drew it forward. She turned, and with a smile and gesture invited him to be seated. A watchful look came into Evasio Mon's quick eyes behind the glasses that reflected the last rays of the setting sun. For the young and the guilty, silence has a special terror. Mon had dealt with the young and the guilty all his life. He sat down without speaking. He was waiting for Juanita. Juanita moved her toe within her neat black slipper, looking at it critically. She was waiting for Evasio Mon. He paused as a duellist may pause with his best weapons laid out on the table before him, wondering which one to select. Perhaps he suspected that Juanita held the keenest; that deadly plain-speaking.
His subtle training had taught him to sink self so completely that it was easy to him to insinuate his mind into the thoughts of another; to understand them, almost to sympathise with them. But Juanita puzzled him. There is no face so baffling as that which a woman shows the world when she is hiding her heart.
"I spoke as a friend," said Mon, "when I recommended you to allow me to escort you to Pampeluna."
"I know that you always speak as a friend," answered Juanita quietly" ... of mine. Not of Marcos, perhaps."
"Ah, but your friends are Marcos'," said Mon, with a suggestion of raillery in his voice.
"And his enemies are mine," she retorted, looking straight in front of her.
"Of course--is it not written in the marriage service?" Mon laughingly turned in his chair and cast a glance up at the windows as he spoke. They were beyond earshot of the house. "But why should I be an enemy of Marcos de Sarrion?"
Then Juanita unmasked her guns.
"Because he outwitted you and married me," she answered.
"For your money--"