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Leon de Mogente was absorbed in his own peculiar selfishness which was not of this world but the next. He fell into the mistake common to ecstatic minds that thoughts of Heaven justify a deliberate neglect of obvious duties on earth. "Leon," said Juanita gaily to Cousin Peligros, "will assuredly be a saint some day: he has so little sense of humour."
Cousin Peligros was therefore keenly alive to the fact, that Juanita required at this critical moment of her life a good and abiding example. Hers also was the blessed knowledge that no one in all Spain was better fitted to offer such an example than the Señorita Peligros de Sarrion.
"Cousin Peligros," said Juanita one day, after listening respectfully to a lecture on the care of the hands, "lives in a little field of her own." "Like a scarecrow," added Marcos, the taciturn. And this was the lady who awaited them at the Palacio Sarrion. She had been summoned from Madrid by Sarrion, who paid the expenses of the journey; no small item, by the way.
You need not be anxious. Yes she will take a little soup a little more than that. And all the other courses." After dinner Cousin Peligros notified through her maid that she felt well enough to see Marcos. When he returned from this interview he joined Sarrion and Juanita in the drawing-room, and he looked grave.
She took an early opportunity of mentioning that ladies should not talk to gentlemen with such familiarity and freedom; that, above all, a smile was sufficient acknowledgment for any jest except those made by the very aged, when to laugh was a sign of respect. For Cousin Peligros had been brought up in a school of manners now fortunately extinct. "He is Marcos' friend," explained Juanita.
And as he had anticipated, Evasio Mon came to Torre Garda. It was almost dusk when he arrived. Whether he knew that Marcos was not in his room, remained an open question. He did not ask after him. He was brought by the servant to the terrace where he found Cousin Peligros and Juanita. Sarrion was in his study and came out when Mon passed the open window.
Cousin Peligros' delicate hearing had not been deceived. The firing was now close at hand. The valley takes a turn to the left below the ridge and upon the hillside above this corner the white irregular line of smoke now became visible. In a few minutes the dark mass of Zeneta's men appeared on the road at the corner. He was before his time. The men were running.
"I thank you," replied Cousin Peligros, who included domestic servants in her category of persons in whose presence it is unladylike to be natural. She bowed to them and the carriage moved away.
Marcos was still talking politics with his friend from the mountains when she passed beneath his window. Sarrion and Evasio Mon had gone to the dining-room, where, it was to be presumed, Cousin Peligros had followed them. She professed a great admiration for Evasio Mon, who was on familiar terms with people of the highest distinction. An hour's start would be sufficient.
"So we are all besieged," said the visitor, with his tolerant smile as he took a chair offered to him in the grand manner by Cousin Peligros, who belonged to the school of etiquette that holds it wrong for any lady to be natural in the presence of men other than of her own family.
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