"Marry you!"
There was contempt as well as surprise in Jack's tone, and Miguel evidently felt this, for he replied with flashing eyes, though with no change in his bland manner:
"Yes, marry me—that was what I think I said. Of course if my good friend Jackino has any objection—"
"Good heavens! Juanita is a thousand times too good for you!" Jack blurted out.
"Quite so; she is a thousand times too good for any man. But since she does me the honour to become my wife, you will surely not have the impudence to question her choice, dear friend."
He hissed out the last sentence, and bent a little forward. Jack shrugged.
"She wasn't always so fond of you," he said bluntly.
"That is not the point, is it?" returned Miguel with an exasperating smile. "The match has long been talked of; Don Fernan and my father were agreed that it was an excellent arrangement for uniting the business interests of the two families. And now that Don Fernan is dead I shall marry Juanita as soon as possible, my father will retire, and I shall be the sole partner of your excellent father, for you, of course, have a soul much above business, and will no doubt ere long be a field-marshal. Perhaps, however, you have no ambition to earn fame in the open and heroic way? Your costume would suggest, my friend, that you are satisfied with a more modest and retiring part—but still, no doubt, profitable—"
"It seems to me, Miguel," said Jack, interrupting him very quietly, "that you have forgotten the last thrashing I gave you. Remember, I am always at your service. But I should not advise you to risk another scar like the one you have already. How," he added quickly, "did you come by that?"
Miguel's sullen face assumed a dusky hue, and the scar showed all the more livid. He flinched, as bullies will, before Jack's menacing attitude.