“Excellent. I marvel that your appetite is so keen, considering the gloomy outlook.”
“Oh, there won't be any trouble,” he assured her. “Duelling is silly, and I wouldn't engage in it on a bet. By the way, I have made my will, just to be on the safe side. Will you be good enough to take charge of it until after the funeral? You can turn it over to Billy then.”
She fell readily into the bantering spirit with which he treated this serious subject. Indeed, it was quite impossible to do otherwise, for John Stuart Webster's personality radiated such a feeling of security, of absolute, unbounded confidence in the future and disdain for whatever of good fortune or ill the future might entail, that Dolores, found it impossible not to assimilate his mood.
At seven-thirty, after a delightful dinner, the memory of which Mr. Webster was certain would linger under his foretop long after every other memory had departed, he escorted her to the open carriage he had ordered, and for two hours they circled the Malecon with the élite of Buenaventura, listening to the music of the band, and during the brief intermissions, to the sound of the waves lapping the beach at the foot of the broad driveway.
“This,” said John Stuart Webster, as he said goodnight to Dolores in the lobby, “is the end of a perfect day.”
It wasn't, for at that precise moment a servant handed him a card, and indicated a young man seated in an adjacent lounging-chair, at the same time volunteering the information that the visitor had been awaiting Senor Webster's return for the past hour.
Webster glanced at the card and strode over to the young man. “I am Mr. Webster, sir,” he announced civilly in Spanish. “And you are Lieutenant Arredondo?”
The visitor rose, bowed low and indicated he was that gentleman. “I have called, Mr. Webster,” he stated in most excellent English, “in the interest of my friend and comrade, Captain Benavides.”
“Ah, yes! The fresh little rooster I ducked in the fountain this evening. Well, what does the little squirt want now? Another ducking?”
Arredondo flushed angrily but remembered the dignity of his mission and controlled his temper. “Captain Benavides has asked me to express to you the hope that you, being doubtless a man of honour——”