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"Let us have some coffee," he said, turning to Cousin Peligros. "Will you see to it, Peligros in the library?" So Peligros walked across the broad terrace with the mincing steps taught in the thirties, leaving Mon hatless with a bowed head according to the etiquette of those leisurely days. He was all things, to all men.
"And I again assure you," added Sor Teresa's brother, "that there is no need for anxiety. We shall arrange this matter quite quietly with Evasio Mon. We shall take Juanita away from your school to-day. Our cousin Peligros is already at the Casa Sarrion waiting her arrival. Marcos has arranged these matters."
Cousin Peligros smiled in rather a pinched way, and with a gesture of her outspread hands morally wiped the besiegers out. No female Sarrion, she seemed to imply, need ever fear inconvenience from a person in uniform. "You and I, Señorita," said Mon, with his bland and easy sympathy of manner, "have no business here. We are persons of peace."
"What is it?" inquired Marcos practically. "What is the matter with her?" "She has just been told that we are married," explained Juanita, airily. "And I think you shocked her by mentioning my clothes. You shouldn't do it, Marcos." And she went and stood by Cousin Peligros with her hand upon her shoulder as if to protect her. She shook her head gravely at Marcos.
He no doubt divined that, accustomed as I am to living in Madrid, I might have been nervous in these remote places." Juanita was tired. They were near their journey's end. She did not take the trouble to explain the situation to Cousin Peligros. There are some fools whom the world allows to continue in their folly because it is less trouble. Marcos and Sarrion were riding together now in silence.
"By the way ..." said Sarrion, and followed her without completing his sentence. So Juanita and Evasio Mon were left alone on the terrace. Juanita was sitting rather upright in a garden chair. The only seat near to her was the easy chair just vacated by Cousin Peligros. Mon looked at it. He glanced at Juanita and then drew it forward.
Marcos made excuses for her to absent herself. He found occupations for her elsewhere. With his returning strength came anxiety that she should lead her own life apart from him. "You need not try to get rid of me," she said to him one day. "And I do not want to go for a walk with Cousin Peligros. She thinks only of her shoes and her clothes while she walks.
She gave him the friendly little nod of a comrade but she did not look at him. The next morning Cousin Peligros took her departure from Torre Garda. "I wash my hands," she said, with the usual gesture, "of the whole affair." As her maid was seated in the carriage beside her she said no more. It remained uncertain whether she washed her hands of the Carlist war or of Juanita.
When Marcos helped Cousin Peligros and Juanita to descend from the high-swung traveling carriage, Juanita was too tired to notice one or two innovations. When, as a schoolgirl, she had spent her holidays at Torre Garde no change had been made in the simple household. But now Marcos had sent from Saragossa such modern furniture as women need to-day. There were new chairs on the terrace.
"They are honest enough, though their appearance may be disquieting." "Oh! I am not afraid of them," answered Juanita, with a shrewd and mystic smile. "It is Cousin Peligros who fears them. She scolded me for speaking to one of them on the verandah. It undermines the pedestal upon which a lady should always stand. Am I on a pedestal, Marcos?"
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