"But, father," replied Marcelino, "can you not see why the idea pleased me? Do you not see that native Argentines are no longer the men they were two years ago, and that Spain is no longer the same Spain either? How can we accept Viceroys and laws from Spain, when Spain herself has no king, and when Frenchmen rule over half the country? There are men among us who speak of a republic, but most of us would be content with far less. With a queen of our own from the royal family of Spain, the government would remain in the hands of men such as you, who are accustomed to govern instead of falling into the hands of inexperienced men, who would bring anarchy upon us."
"I will not argue the question with you, Marcelino," replied Don Roderigo, "but I merely warn you that so long as an armed Frenchman treads the soil of Spain the integrity of the dominion of Spain must be the first object with every true Spaniard."
Marcelino listened to his father unconvinced, yet stirred himself no further in the matter, leaving it entirely in the hands of his friend Don Manuel Belgrano, who, being a man of much greater experience and of higher position than himself, was more likely to be able to bring it to a successful issue. But he also refused to listen to the solicitations of his friend Evaña; returning to his post at the Consulado, he passed his days in the sedulous discharge of his duties, and his evenings in study, or in pleasant social intercourse. At least one evening every week he passed at the quinta of Don Alfonso, till Magdalen learned to look for his visits as one of the pleasures of her monotonous life. Sometimes Evaña accompanied him, but never did either of them speak a word to Don Alfonso on the politics of the day. He was invariably civil to them, but to him their visits gave no pleasure, and they could plainly see that it was often a relief to him when they took their departure.
To Evaña these visits were as a penance undertaken for the sake of his friend, but of Don Alfonso's increasing taciturnity Marcelino took no note, there was one there always ready to talk to him, or to listen to what he said, who took a deep interest in all his studies, and whose large grey eyes lighted up her plain features into a beauty all their own as he spoke to her. To him the months passed quickly, and happy in the present he gave but now and then a passing thought to the future.
As for Don Carlos Evaña, his thoughts were ever in the future, but his hopes, his fears, and his projects he kept all to himself, working continually with one object steadily in view, the overthrow of Spanish rule, but working in a way which appeared to none to be work. His estancia he but once visited all that spring, and then his visit was a short one, nearly all his time he spent in the city. Don Cornelio Saavedra, Colonel of the Patricios, offered him a commission in the first battalion, the command of the company formerly led by Don Isidro Lorea, which he declined, yet he practised fencing every day, and those of his books which treated of the art of war were those most frequently studied by him.
One battalion of the Patricios was known as that of the "Pardos y Morenos," being composed entirely of men of colour, liberated slaves, or the descendants of freedmen. At the headquarters of this battalion Evaña was a frequent visitor. Don Cornelio Saavedra met him there one day and asked him somewhat scornfully whether he would prefer a commission in this regiment to one in the corps d'elite, but to him Evaña answered that as yet he had no wish to enter any regiment. Don Cornelio noticed the accent on the word "yet," and replied:
"It would be difficult for even a philosopher to understand you, Don Carlos; for me, I confess that I understand you not at all."
But the free negroes and mulattos understood something about Don Carlos, of which Don Cornelio knew nothing, which was, that if they required favour or assistance in any way, none was so ready to help them as Don Carlos Evaña, and that the only way in which they could repay him for any such service was to repeat to him all the tittle-tattle and gossip they could collect among their women-folk concerning the saying and doings of certain of the chief men of the city who were Spaniards.
Don Manuel Belgrano entered eagerly into a secret correspondence with certain confidential friends of the Princess Carlota; despatched missives to trusty friends of his own throughout the provinces, advocating her claims; and kept alive the zeal of her friends in the city by frequent secret conferences, which were held in the guise of dinner-parties, or of excursions into the country, so baulking the vigilance of Don Roderigo, or of any others unfriendly to the project. So passed with him the spring very harmlessly, but his enthusiasm greatly subsided as he learnt that even American air could not liberalize a Bourbon of the royal house of Spain.