“Because you were unable to come. Have I offended you?” she asked. “Come, forgive me if I have,” she urged, crossing to him, placing her hand upon his coat sleeve and looking up into his face. “I return to Madrid next Monday. You shall travel with me—eh?”
“I am not going back to Madrid,” was his slow reply, his eyes fixed upon hers.
“Not going back!” she echoed. “Why not?”
“I have been transferred to the Embassy in Rome. I leave for Italy the day after to-morrow.”
“To Italy,” she whispered blankly. “Then—then you will no longer be in Spain?”
“No. My term in Madrid has ended,” he answered in a hard, strained voice, for even then he found it hard to bid her farewell.
“Ah!” she cried suddenly. “I see—I see it in your manner! You are tired of me—you are displeased with the Duke. You are jealous of him—jealous that men should flatter me. You, my dear friend, in whom I held such high respect, will not desert me.”
“Alas, Beatriz, I am not my own master. If I were, I should not leave Madrid,” he said earnestly, for that was, after all, the truth.
“And yet, knowing how fondly I love you, Hubert, you will really leave me thus!” she cried, suddenly catching his hand and carrying it to her full red lips. “No,” she went on, tears welling in her wonderful eyes, “you cannot do this. You, too, love me—you know well that you do. Come, do not let us part. I—I know I am foolish—I—ah! no! I love you, Hubert—only you!” And full of her hot Spanish passion she threw her arms about him and burst into a flood of hot tears.
Hubert Waldron bit his lip. He recollected at that moment all the stories concerning her—of the blackmail levied, with her connivance, by the drunken cab-driver whom he himself had once seen in the Puerta del Sol. He remembered his promise to his Chief, and the plain, outspoken words of his friend, Jack Jerningham.