"Ah, que!" muttered Don Luis, who had his hand upon the latch.
"A birthday—what is it? A thing of every year. Is he likely to receive a brass crucifix worth two maravedis every year, and every year to sheathe it in gold? Never! This marks a solemnity—a great solemnity. Listen, I will tell you. It marks the end of a liaison. She has left him—but tenderly; or he has left her—but regretfully. It becomes a touching affair. Do you not agree with me?"
Don Luis raised his eyebrows. "I have no means of agreeing with you, Sebastian. It may mark the end of a story—or the beginning. Who knows?" He threw out his arms and let them drop. "Señor God, who cares?"
CHAPTER X
FURTHER EPISODES IN THE LIFE OF DON LUIS RAMONEZ
Goldsmithing is the art of Valladolid, and Sebastian was its master. That was the opinion of the mystery, and his own opinion. He never concealed it; but he had now to confess that Manvers had given him a task worthy of his powers. To cut out and rivet the links of the chain, which was to sheathe a piece of string and leave it all its pliancy—"I tell you, Don Luis of my soul," he said, peering up from his board, "there is no man in our mystery who could cope with it—and very few frail ladies who could be worthy of it." Don Luis added that there could be few young men who could be capable of commanding it; but Sebastian had now conceived an admiration for his client.
"Fantasia, vaya! The English have the hearts of poets in the bodies of beeves. Did your grace ever hear of Doña Juanita—who in the French war ran half over Andalusia in pursuit of an Englishman? I heard my father tell the tale. Not his person claimed her, but his heart of a poet. Well, he married her, and from camp to camp she trailed after him, while he helped our nation beat Bonaparte. But one day they received the hospitality of a certain hidalgo, and had removed many leagues from him by the next night, when they camped beside a river. Dinner was eaten in the tents, and dessert served up in a fine bowl. 'Sola!' says the Englishman, 'that bowl—it is not ours, my heart?' 'No,' says Juanita, 'it is the hidalgo's, and was packed with our furniture in the hurry of departing.' 'Por dios!' says the Englishman, 'it must be returned to him.' But how? He could not go himself, for at that moment there entered an alguazil with news of the enemy. What then? 'Juanita will go,' says the Englishman, and went out, buckling his sword. Señor Don Luis, she went, on horseback, all those leagues, beset with foes, in the night, and rendered back the bowl. I tell you, the hearts of poets!"
Don Luis, who had been nodding his high approval, now stared. "Ah, que! But the poet was Doña Juanita, it seems to me," he said.
"Pardon me, dear sir, not at all. Our Spanish ladies are not fond of travel. It was the Englishman who inspired her. He was a poet with a vision. In his vision he saw her going. Safely then, he could say, she will go, because he, to whom time was nothing, saw her in the act. He did not give directions—he went out to engage the enemy. Then she went—vaya!"