“Believe me, there is more in life than you think. There is at your age, more than...” he had a strange contortion of the body, as though in a sudden access of internal pain; that humorous smile, that abode in the form of his lips, changed into a ghastly, forced grin... “than one love in a life—more than one woman.”
I believe he tried to leer at me, because his voice was absolutely dying in his throat. My indignation was boundless. I cried out with the fire of deathless conviction:
“It is not true. You know it is not true.”
He was speechless for a time; then, shaking and stammering with that inward rage that seemed to heave like molten lava in his breast, without ever coming to the surface of his face:
“What! Is it I, then, who have to go back? For—for you—-a boy—come from devil knows where—an English, beggarly.... For a girl’s whim.... I—a man.”
He calmed down. “No; you are mad. You are dreaming. You don’t know. You can’t—you! You don’t know what a man is; you with your calf-love a day old. How dare you look at me who have breathed for years in the very air? You fool—you little, wretched fool! For years sleeping, and waking, and working....”
“And intriguing,” I broke in, “and plotting, and deceiving—for years.”
This calmed him altogether. “I am a man; you are but a boy; or else I would not have to tell you that your love”—he choked at the word—“is to mine like—like—”
His eyes fell on a cut-glass water-ewer, and, with a convulsive sweep of his arm, he sent it flying far away from the table. It fell heavily, shattering itself with the unringing thud of a piece of ice. “Like this.” He remained for some time with his eyes fixed on the table, and when he looked up at me it was with a sort of amused incredulity. His tone was not resentful. He spoke in a business-like manner, a little contemptuously. I had only Don Carlos to thank for the position in which I found myself. What the “poor devil over there” expected from me, he, O’Brien, would not inquire. It was a ridiculous boy-and-girl affair. If those two—meaning Carlos and Seraphina—had not been so mighty clever, I should have been safe now in Jamaica jail, on a charge of treasonable practices. He seemed to find the idea funny. Well, anyhow, he had meant no worse by me than my own dear countrymen. When he, O’Brien, had found how absurdly he had been hoodwinked by Don Carlos—the poor devil—and misled by Ramon—he would make him smart for it, yet—all he had intended to do was to lodge me in Havana jail. On his word of honour...
“Me in jail!” I cried angrily. “You—you would dare! On what charge? You could not....”