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The coalition seemed so natural and so eminently practical, and yet the sailor sat coldly listening to each proposition as it fell from his companion's lips, weighing it, sifting it with a judicial, indifferent apathy. The Count de Lloseta threw himself back in his chair, and awaited, with all the gravity of his race, the pleasure of his companion. At length Fitz spoke, rather deliberately.

I will be with you by seven o'clock to-night at D'Erraha." Fitz did not offer to accompany him, and Cipriani de Lloseta rode that strange ride alone; unknown, an outcast in his own land, he rode through the most fertile valley in the world, of which every tree was dear to him; and no man knew his thoughts.

He was dusty and travel-stained, but the natural hardiness of his frame seemed to be more apparent than ever in his native land, on his native mountains. "My poor little tale," he said; "you will have it?" "Yes," said Eve; and Fitz nodded. Cipriani de Lloseta did not look at them, but down into the gathering blue of the valley beneath them.

It was nothing but the tone of a girl's voice, the studied silence of a girl's eyes, which had once been eloquent. It was getting late. A discreet clock on the mantelpiece declared the hour of midnight in deliberate cathedral chime. Fitz looked up, but he did not move. He liked Cipriani de Lloseta. He had been prepared to do so, and now he had gone further than he had intended.

All Majorca would turn its back upon me all except Challoner. I paid the woman. I have paid her ever since, and I do not regret it. What else could I do? After many generations of honour and uprightness I could not let the name of Lloseta fall into the hands of a low woman such as Mrs. Harrington. I had to pay heavily, but it was still cheap. I saved the name.

"I thought you had bad news," she said. And Cipriani de Lloseta knew that this was a woman whose heart was at sea. "No," he answered; "I merely came to quarrel." He drew forward a chair, and Eve sat down. "We shall always quarrel," he went on, "unless you are kind. Let us begin at once and get it over, because I want to stay to lunch.

He waited for some little time, but Captain Bontnor had no comment to offer, so De Lloseta went on: "Challoner was one of my best friends. I do not feel disposed to let the matter drop, more especially now that you have been compelled to leave Malabar Cottage. I propose entreating Miss Challoner to reconsider her decision. Will you help me?" "Yes," answered Captain Bontnor, "I will."

More especially did she understand at this time that life may be compared to a stream, for she was vaguely conscious of drifting she knew not whither. Fitz had come suddenly into her life; Captain Bontnor had come into it; and now this man, Cipriani de Lloseta, seemed to be asserting his right to come into it too. And she did not know quite what to do with them all.

"So you saw the Ingham-Bakers also, Fitz?" "Yes; they lunched with us." "And Agatha was very pleasant, no doubt?" "Very." "She always is to men. The Count admires her greatly. She makes him do so." "She has an easy task," put in De Lloseta quietly. It almost seemed that there was some feeling about Agatha between these two people. "You know," Mrs.

De Lloseta called the waiter and gave the order with a slight touch of imperiousness which was one of the few attributes that stamped him as a Spaniard. The feudal taint was still running in his veins. "Tell me," he went on, turning to Fitz again, "what you know of the island what parts of it and what you did there." In some ways Fitz was rather a simple person. "Oh!" he answered unconsciously.