Perez threw up his hands in horror. "Señor Saunders!" he cried; "for you to say this! I am astonished! Abstract the lady without her wish? Surely I have not heard you rightly—chanzas aparte, you play with me—you wish to see me look?"
"Not I," says I, stout; "I mean every word of it. As Sax said this afternoon, there's times when it's wicked to twiddle with courtesy. That girl will ruin her whole life if Belknap has the making of it. Her friends oughtn't to stand by and see it done—damn it, man! Suppose she dropped her handkerchief as she was falling over a cliff—what would you do first: save her life or pick up the handkerchief?"
Perez puffed and thought a moment. "Tiene V. razon," he says, "there is more here than a ball-room. I knew her as a girl, I know her now. Belknap I know too. My life I stake on it that for Belknap to win her, means her life wrecked, and yet I stop—from habit. I stake my life—I mean it—on my judgment, yet dare not stake an action to make that judgment good."
He waited again, while the minutes slipped by; drumming on the table; shifting things in his mind. The whole air of long, long use to the handsome, nice things I saw about me struck me strong in the man. He was born to it, and his forebears centuries before him. Yet instead of breeding out the man in him, it had only taken off the scum.
At last he spoke. "Give me more time, campañero. I shall consider this further. To meddle with other lives is always a dangerous business, just as not to meddle may be a shameful one. As it stands, if he gets not the lady for a wife, Saxton is a lost man—I know him. On his word, on your word and on my word, she is not indifferent to him. We know Belknap is a rascal, and for her unfit. And so, action—yet I am a man of peace."
He smiled at me. "Did you ever see a man of peace in more unpeaceful place? Well, Señor Saunders, your plan has that daring which often cows success. It remains to be seen whether Arthur can by any means be brought to think of it: his pride will be afire at the thought—yes, that is it. Listen. If you can gain his acceptance—and you have no plan without it—I am with you, heart and soul."
"Good!" says I. "Shake hands on it. I sha'n't strike Arthur at once. I mean to work up the disagreement with Brother Belknap first. 'T will do no harm in any case if his head is punched."
Perez laughed. "You are warrior, pure and not so simple," says he. "Heaven send strength to your arm when you meet."
"I ask no odds of top, bottom, nor middle," says I. "Give me a fair field."
"There spoke a better spirit than Achilles of old times," says Perez. "So should I be, if I had an arm like that."