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"But I have friends to visit on the way," and to give convincing details to an excuse which was plainly disbelieved, Shere added, "Just this side of Setenil I have friends." The padre was still dissatisfied. "There is only one house just this side of Setenil, and Esteban Silvela I saw with my own eyes to-day in Ronda." "He may well be home by now, and it is not Esteban whom I go to see."
Silvela and Sagasta go backwards and forwards with the regularity of a pendulum, and the country goes on its way improving its position daily and hourly, with small thanks to its Government. Perhaps it is as well! It gives assurance, at least, that no particularly wild schemes or subversive changes shall be made.
My friend, do you know that Esteban has not a groat? The Silvela fortunes and estate came from the mother and went to the daughter. Esteban is the Señora Christina's steward, and her marriage would alter his position at the least. Did he not spoil the magic of the months in Paris?" Shere laughed aloud in assured confidence. "No, indeed," said he.
In the late crisis, when the Conservative party under Silvela, called into office for the sake of carrying the extremely unpopular marriage of the Princess of Asturias with the Count of Caserta, had nearly managed to wreck the monarchy, or, at any rate, the regency, and to bring the always dangerous clerical question to an acute stage by suspending the constitutional guarantees over the whole of Spain, it was Romero Robledo who told the Queen quite plainly that before anything else could be done the guarantees must be restored, that the liberties of the people could not be interfered with, and that, in short, the Liberal party must be called into office.
And while I was wondering she herself stooped, picked up the fan, and good-humouredly dropped me a curtsey for my lack of manners. Esteban presented me to her that evening. There followed two magical months in Paris and a June in London." "But, Esteban?" said the padre, doubtfully. "I do not understand. I know something of Esteban Silvela. A lean man of plots and devices.
Two men since the assassination of Cánovas have alternately occupied the post of First Minister of the Crown: Don Práxadis Mateo Sagasta, one of those mobile politicians who always fall on their feet whatever happens, and Francisco Silvela, who may be described as a Liberal-Conservative in contrast to Cánovas, who was a Tory of the old school, and aspired to be a despot.
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