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"Pray," said the founder of the society, "as if everything depended on prayer, and act as if everything depended on action." "Of what are you thinking?" Sarrion asked suddenly, when they had ridden almost to the city gates in silence. "I was wondering what Juanita will say, some day, when she knows and understands everything."
"So long as he is away we need not be uneasy about Juanita," said Marcos. "He cannot return to Saragossa without my hearing of it." And one evening a casual teamster from the North, whose great two-wheeled cart, as high as a house and as long as a locomotive, stood in the dusty road outside the Posada de los Reyes, dropped in, cigarette in mouth, to the Palacio Sarrion.
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.
"It is no good telling me to go away," she said, "because I won't." Then she turned to get a sponge and water. Sarrion was already busy at Marcos' collar, which he had unbuttoned. Suddenly he changed his mind and turned away. "Undo his collar," he said. "I will go down-stairs and get some warm water." He took the candle and left Juanita alone with Marcos. She did as she was told and bent over him.
He was hardly surprised to see the Count Sarrion, one of the exclusives who had never accepted Queen Isabella's new military aristocracy, with his hat in one hand and the other extended towards him, on the platform awaiting his arrival. "You will travel with us," said Sarrion. And the General accepted, looking round to see that his attendants were duly impressed.
Father and son drove together to the apartment in a street high above the town, near the church of San José where the Sarrions lived when in Madrid, and there Sarrion gave Marcos further details of that strange adventure which Amedeo of Spain was about to begin. In return Marcos vouchsafed a brief account of affairs in the valley of the Wolf.
"Yes," answered Sarrion. "Why do you ask?" "I have heard that he is to receive a command in the army of the North." Sarrion made a grimace, uncomplimentary to that very smart soldier General Pacheco, and at the foot of the stairs he stopped to speak to a friend.
His eyes were a bluish gray, and looked out upon the world with a reflective attention through gold-rimmed eye-glasses, with which he had a habit of amusing himself while talking, examining their mechanism and the knot of the fine black cord with a bat-like air of blindness. In body and mind he seemed to be almost a young man. But Ramon de Sarrion said that he had known him all his life.
Cousin Peligros was therefore glad enough to quit the train at Pampeluna, where the carriage from Torre Garda awaited them. There were saddle horses for Sarrion and Marcos, and a handful of troops were waiting in the shadow of the trees outside of the station yard. An officer rode forward and paid his respects to Juanita. "You do not recognise me, Senorita," he said.
"It takes two to clash," replied Marcos at length in his contemplative way, having given the matter his consideration. And perhaps that was the only explanation of it. Sarrion looked up now and met the smile with a grave bow. They took off their hats to each other with rather more ceremony than when they had last met. A long, slow friendship is the best; a long, slow enmity the deadliest.
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