"Bet you—" he began in desperation; but finding himself unable to state a wager that would meet the case, he buried his face in a tankard, from which it took a considerable time to emerge.
Next day it was a quiet and subdued group that crossed to the house opposite. Captain O'Hare was unmistakeably nervous, Pomeroy self-consciously gorgeous, and Shirley pale with sitting up late the previous night over a Spanish grammar, conjugating the verb Amor in all its moods and tenses. The Grampus took his revenge in chaffing them, and they all grunted approval when Captain O'Hare exclaimed:
"Bedad, if 'twas on Shannon's shore 'tis meself that would be at home, but 'tis a mighty different thing meeting a Spanish lady on the banks of the Taygus without a word of the lingo to turn a compliment."
But they were agreeably surprised when, after being welcomed in broken English by their portly and amiable Portuguese hostess, they were greeted in the same tongue, spoken with the prettiest accent imaginable, by a charming young señorita. Her beauty made an instant and visible impression on Captain O'Hare's susceptible soul.
The dinner was long remembered and talked of by the officers of O'Hare's company. There was a numerous party, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Jack was unwillingly the hero of the evening, and the flattering attentions paid him would have been still more embarrassing had he not been so preoccupied in watching Juanita, who appeared to him in a quite unaccustomed light. He had admired her courage during the dark days of the siege; he had got an inkling even then of the essential brightness of her temperament; but he was hardly prepared for her perfect ease and self-possession, the vivacity of her conversation, and her social tact. He felt an inexplicable sinking at the heart; Juanita seemed to be farther away from him than at any time since he had first met her in Saragossa. They had been frank comrades during the hazardous journey across country to the coast, and the delightful voyage that had just closed their adventures, and under stress of circumstances Jack had for so long taken the lead that it was a sort of awakening to find that she was now independent of his counsel and protection. Moreover, she was going to England. He had intended to go with her, but the return of his regiment had altered all that. Till this moment he had not realized what a separation might really mean. He felt that they were at the parting of the ways.
It was from Juanita's lips that his brother officers heard the full story of his work in Saragossa, and after. Simply, without exaggeration, yet glowingly, she described how, with unfailing resource, he had met and frustrated all the attacks of the French on his little garrison and kept the flag flying to the last. Captain O'Hare followed her story with unwavering interest. He was not the man to praise lightly. Indeed, it was not the custom in that age of hard fighters to scatter vain compliments; his subalterns were therefore the more deeply impressed when, in a pause, he turned to Juanita and said in a tone vibrant with earnestness:
"By my faith, Señorita, yours is a story of which every soldier, British or Spanish, may be proud. I honour your countrymen and countrywomen for their glorious defence of Saragossa—there is nothing finer that I know in all history. And we British officers are proud to think that one of ours, one of the 95th, is among the heroes of the siege. We all try to do our duty; few of us get the chance, like my friend Lumsden, of doing so much more than our mere duty; and by my soul, if we do get the chance, I only hope we'll make as good a use of it."
Jack, who had spent a most uncomfortable half-hour, was greatly relieved when the ladies withdrew. But his troubles were not over, for Captain O'Hare, resuming the brogue which had disappeared during his late outburst, said with a chuckle:
"By Vanus and all the Graces, 'tis a lucky thing for you, you young scamp, that Peter O'Hare is not fifteen years younger. 'Tis meself would have tried a fall wid ye—ay, and come in at a canter. Indeed an' I'm not sure 'tis too late even now. She was mighty civil to me at dinner, indeed she was."
The worthy captain laughed heartily, and turned to make himself agreeable, in halting French, to a colonel of Portuguese artillery.