“Not there, not so far away,” he exclaimed. “Come here,” and he patted with the palm of his hand the sofa which was in juxtaposition to his chair.
“Have a cigarette,” he added, as I moved close to him and he held out a silver cigarette case with a small monogram in the upper left hand corner.
“May I smoke?” I queried, I must confess, in some surprise.
“Naturally, why not? Here”—and before I had fairly taken the cigarette, His Majesty, with characteristic quickness had struck a wax vesta and was holding it toward my mouth that I might get my light.
My slow wits happily returned in time for me to catch the match from the Royal fingers, to offer it first to him and then light my own. These were the preliminaries. They were over in a minute. After we had lighted our cigarettes, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees and the joints of his fingers closed against each other before him. He spoke rapidly but thoughtfully, and in his voice was the ring of a man of enthusiasms.
Beneath the smooth, olive skin and the flashing black eyes, one felt a strong, passionate nature. One got instantly behind the glamour of royalty and saw only the man, the man of conviction and of courage,—the man of Destiny.
No photograph has ever portrayed King Alfonso. He is unphotographable. The man is not in his features but in his expressions, his manners, his atmosphere of charming manliness; above all in the scintillating glints of his flashing eyes.
“You have come at a very interesting moment in our history,” he said, “because it is a moment of change for Spain. We are just recovering from our long era of costly wars, ending with the disastrous war with America, and our recent colonial wars.” He paused and smiled genially as he added, “In the war with America, we were badly beaten, but that is a matter which has now passed into history and that page of our history we have turned over. I think I can speak for everyone in Spain when I say that not the slightest feeling of rancour remains with us; and I have ample evidence that the American people have none but the best of wishes for Spain.” I replied that many Americans were ready to congratulate Spain in being well rid of Cuba and the Philippines, those frightfully expensive drains on the resources of Spain—which are proving a by no means light drain upon the resources of America.
His Majesty’s eyes twinkled merrily as he looked directly into my face. After a brief pause, he went on: “However that may be, a new era for Spain began with the close of the war. The recent war in Africa cost us heavily—fifty-three million pesetas ($10,600,000).”
“Surely that is not much as the cost of wars go nowadays,” I interrupted.