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Updated: July 13, 2025
Since 1905 the one thing for which they had lived, besides the caoutchouc, was to see the monarchy restored and their beloved Alejandro the Thirteenth back on his throne. Their efforts toward this end had been untiring, and were at last showing signs of bearing fruit. Paranoya, Maraquita assured Roland, was honeycombed with intrigue.
She was guilty of it, her proud and haughty mother had destined Maraquita to be the bride of a wealthy grandee of old Spain had disposed of those affections, no longer in Maraquita's power to give, for they had already been transferred with all the other treasures of a young and loving heart, to the keeping of a dark-eyed youth of Manilla.
"In that case she should ask you if her name is masculine or feminine, Mrs. Herne?" The old lady started. "I should like to know what you mean?" "Senora Gredos' Christian name should be Maraquita, not Maraquito!" "Really. I never gave the matter a thought. I will tell her about it if you like. I said she did not speak Spanish! She has led a strange life.
Poor Maraquita, thy fate was melancholy, and thy story a sad one, but one too often told of the warm-eyed and passionate maidens of this "land of the sun." She had loved, her family opposed. Her lover was beneath her in condition, yet she loved him still the dearer. In these countries, for a daughter to think of mating without consent of priests and parents, is sacrilege.
Maraquita scanned his face keenly. "You are not weakening, Roland?" she said. "You would not betray us now?" "Well, of course, I don't know about betraying, you know, but still . What I mean is " Maraquita's eyes seemed to shoot forth two flames. "Take care," she cried. "With me it is nothing, for I know that your heart is with Paranoya.
Maraquita had left the royal residence long before he had finished the whisky-and-soda which the genial monarch had pressed upon him. As he walked, the futility of his situation came home to him more and more. Whatever he did, he was bound to displease somebody; and these Paranoyans were so confoundedly impulsive when they were vexed. For two days he avoided Maraquita.
They were manifestly soothed. Even Bombito. Introductions in detail then took place. This time, for Roland's benefit, Maraquita spoke in English, and he learned that most of those present were marquises. Before him, so he gathered from Maraquita, stood the very flower of Paranoya's aristocracy, driven from their native land by the Infamy of 1905.
Suppose he did beware to the extent of withdrawing his support from the royalist movement, what then? Bombito. If ever there was a toad under the harrow, he was that toad. And all because a perfectly respectful admiration for the caoutchouc had led him to occupy a stage-box several nights in succession at the theater where the peerless Maraquita tied herself into knots.
As, at the end of it, the entire company rose to their feet and extended their glasses toward him with a mighty shout, he assumed that Maraquita had been proposing his health. "They say 'To the liberator of Paranoya!" kindly translated the Peerless One. "You must excuse," said Maraquita tolerantly, as a bevy of patriots surrounded Roland and kissed him on the cheek.
For perhaps a minute and a half Maraquita fixed her compelling eyes on his without uttering a word. Then she broke a painful silence with this leading question: "You love me, hein?" Roland nodded feebly. "When men make love to me, I send them away so." She waved her hand toward the door, and Roland began to feel almost cheerful again. He was to be dismissed with a caution, after all.
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