"Perhaps not. But, to come from abstract thought to concrete application. When the señorita of the window pane looked down on the parade ground facing old Pilar Convent the place widened into fields of conquest. The flashing sword in the hand of her cadet-officer became a marshal's baton, the sword-belt, a viceroy's sash. Her eaglet would fly straight-winged into the face of the sun. Though storms above the clouds might whirl him like a dried and broken branch, and hurl him back to earth, yet ever upward would be his purpose. Don Alfredo, have you ever tried your wings? Don't speak, soldier. I will answer for you. Like the pet chick, pinions folded, have you been content with hopping fences—the eaglet-cadet a village comandante."
"I am fulfilling my duty to the best of my ability."
She drew her hand away, and looked him squarely in the face.
"Fulfilling duty! Alfredo, you exhaust my patience. I have power; I have influence, I have standing at the court of Saint James. Under Lord Aberdeen's written promise to me, would he make high place for you in Europe, or in vast India. You yawned. My offer was unconsidered.
"A strange contempt for opportunity seems ever to have been your make-up. As in manhood, so in your youth. Alfredo, during those three years at Pilar you blew a kiss to me from the parade ground; or, was it twice? or, perhaps thrice? or, even more. A valiant conquistador-in-the-making, disregarding barrier, would have reached the topmost span of that forbidding cloister, to salute the lips of the watching maiden at closer range than fifty paces.
"But to return to later times. If Britain possesses California, a viceroyship must go to some one. You shrugged when I spoke of tossing it to you; yet, it is a catch for which many an ambitious caballero would stretch ready hands."
"I am not ambition's fool, neither am I without ambition. If I rise, my own feet shall lift me, step by step," in his voice a ring of challenge.
"In other words, you prefer to protect the flocks of rich herdsmen against marauding aborigine—if not in California, elsewhere. No?"
"Silvia, let us cease this exchange of words. We have much in common. Come with me. Be my household queen. In coming here to-day not the least in my thought was the wish to take you away from the politics of the world. Come, Silvia, come."
"And, over there—in the distance—beyond the shadows—would be my ideal calling to me, chiding me, telling me of my unfaithfulness. No, Alfredo, I lie to myself no longer.