"Seguramente, señor, any caballero would do what you have done ... if he had a spark of manhood. Seguramente! I ... I hope you will allow a friend to ... to.... Cá! ... to congratulate you, señor."
This equivocal sentence brought the conversation to an impasse. The drummer was on the verge of taking offense at the innuendo, when Esteban interrupted in a very miserable voice:
"Señor Strawbridge, you are a wise man. Tell me what I can do to regain Madruja."
The drummer was touched at the peon's unashamed desolation.
"Esteban," he said seriously, "I don't know what you can do. I have been thinking over your very question—in a general way. There are no courts to separate her from ... from him. There is no public opinion to force him to give her up. There is no—"
"But, señor," interrupted the peon, "she—mi Madruja adorata—is not with el Presidente any more!"
Strawbridge leaned forward and peered around the bull-fighter at the peon.
"Not with him any more? What do you mean, Esteban?"
The youth made a desperate gesture.