"Come and talk to me, Don Marcelino," said she to him, as he crossed the room and passed near her chair. "I wish to speak to you about a friend of yours."
"Always at your orders, Señora," said Marcelino, seating himself beside her.
"Your friend Don Carlos Evaña is a patriot, so say you and some others who know him better than I do; but for my part I understand nothing of such patriotism. An invasion is coming, all our young men take some part in the preparations except he, he shuts himself up in his house and does nothing. Where was he last year? There are who say he was never in Paraguay at all, but was in England. It is known that there are Americans in London, who have for their own purposes encouraged and even asked the British Government to send out this expedition; probably he knows them, perhaps he is one of them, he was much in London before he came back from Europe."
"Don Carlos does nothing because he thinks resistance is useless."
"And he stirs not a hand to save our city from the dishonour of a second time being conquered by a foreign army."
"He says that its conquest is dishonour to Spain, not to us; in this I do not agree with him."
"I should think not. If we are beaten the loss and the dishonour will be ours. But I have no fear; on the 12th August we had no troops, now we have thousands; we shall win, and the glory will be ours. You will have your part in it, my friend, but as for Evaña—Pish! I am sorry that he is a friend of yours, and a protegé of Don Gregorio; if he were not he would long since have been where such traitors ought to be, in calabozo."
"Forgive me for differing from you, Doña Dalmacia, but Evaña is no traitor, he is simply an enemy of Spain. If we drive back the English we shall have the glory, as you say, but Spain will reap the reward."
"If! why you say 'if' as though there could be any doubt about it."