ALTHOUGH Sampayo had obviously made up his mind to ascertain at once whether I knew anything about those black doings of his in South Africa, I had not the slightest intention of satisfying him.
There were many things I had to clear up before I dealt with him; and, as matters stood, it suited me much better that Miralda should be betrothed to him than to any one else.
Sampayo was a big brute, much bigger than I, and had once possessed great strength; but during his years of comfort and wealth, fat had taken the place of a good deal of his muscle. He had, however, retained the air of bullying masterfulness and he now tried to bully me.
“You have not been frank with me, Mr. Donnington,” he said as he sat down. “I don’t suppose you wished purposely to mislead me, but you did so in fact. You said that after the relief of Mafeking you did not see any more of the war.”
“No, no, pardon me. I said I was sent down country.”
“Well, that’s much the same thing, sir; whereas, from what you have told Mademoiselle Dominguez it is clear that you went up country again and were there at the end of things. You meant me to infer the opposite, and I must ask you for your reasons.”
At his hectoring tone I turned and looked him full in the eyes, and then turned away again with a shrug of the shoulders, giving him no other reply.
“You heard me, Mr. Donnington.”
I took out my watch, glanced at the time, and replaced it in my pocket very deliberately, and yawned.
“I have asked you a question, sir, and I mean to have an answer.”
I paused and looked at him again more deliberately than before. “Is it possible that you are addressing me?”
“Certainly I am addressing you,” he said with an angry twist of the head.
“Then be good enough to drop that barrack-yard tone, or say at once that you wish to force a quarrel upon me.”
I knew he was an arrant coward; and this was not at all to his liking. After a slight pause he said in a very different manner: “I may have spoken abruptly, but I think I am entitled to an explanation.”
“Of what?” I rapped out very sharply.
“Whether you intentionally misled me as to your movements in South Africa?”
“What on earth can it matter to you or any one else except myself where I went and where I did not go in South Africa?”
“Do you say you did not meet me out there?”
“Why should I say whether I did or did not? And why should you be so anxious about it?”
“I am not anxious about it at all. No more so than yourself. But if you did meet me and now deny it, I have a right to ask your reasons.”
“I met hundreds of men, of course—thousands indeed—and equally of course you may have been one of them.”
“That is not meant as an evasion, I hope,” he exclaimed, losing his temper again.
“Major Sampayo!” I cried indignantly.
He gave a twirl to his moustaches and it looked as if he were going to quarrel in earnest. But he thought better of it. “I meant no offence, Mr. Donnington,” he muttered.
“Then I will take none.”
“But you will remember your remark that you never forget a face.”
“I did not mean that I could identify at sight every man I met in the campaign both on our side and among the Boers. Of course there would have to be something in the circumstances of the meeting which would serve as a connecting link.”
“And you do not remember me then?” he persisted.
It was awkward to answer this without a direct lie, so I turned and had another steady look at him for perhaps half a minute and then shook my head. “Can you suggest anything likely to recall your features to me?”
His eyes shifted uneasily under my scrutiny, and he vented a little sigh of relief as he replied: “Of course I cannot.”
“We both appear to be in the same difficulty, then. Now that I look fixedly at your features, there is something about them that I seem to know; but very likely it is only due to the fact that I have seen you two or three times to-night. Sampayo. Sampayo,” I repeated, as if trying to recall the name, and then shook my head again as if giving the matter up. “I suppose we must take it that we have not met,” I said.
“I can understand that,” I said with a smile.
“You will excuse my curiosity, I trust, Mr. Donnington. It may have seemed somewhat exaggerated to you perhaps, but I am always anxious to meet any one who was out there when I was.”
“I can understand that,” I said, with a smile.
All the former uneasy suspicion leapt to life again in his eyes. “Why?” he asked, quickly and eagerly.
“It is just the same with me,” I answered lightly. “It suggests a sort of comradeship, you know, chatting over the old experiences.”
“Certainly, certainly,” he agreed.
“I shall be glad to have an opportunity of exchanging experiences with you some day. Only we mustn’t begin, as we did just now, by firing broadsides at one another.”
“No, no, of course not. I am quite ashamed of my heat.”
“That’s all right, major. On which side were you in the war? Of course we’ve all buried the hatchet long ago.”
“I was not a combatant, Mr. Donnington. I was making money and was very successful, I am glad to say.” As I knew how he had made it, his boastful self-complacent tone was amusing. “I rejoined the army here on my return. And now there is another topic on which I should like to say just a word or two. You met Mademoiselle Dominguez last spring in Paris, I believe.”
“Yes. She was there with her mother.”
“You are aware that she has done me the honour to promise to be my wife?”
“Oh yes. She herself told me. But——”
He interrupted with a wave of the hand. “One moment. It has been suggested to me to-night that your present visit is in some respects a result of that meeting?”
I smiled. “Considering that I have been only two days in the city there appears to be a tremendous amount of interest in my movements and actions.”
“You have proposed that we should see something of each other in a friendly way, Mr. Donnington, and I should be glad of your assurance that there is no truth in the suggestion?”
“Really, really!” I protested laughing again.
“Pardon my frankness, but I wish to know where we stand.”
“You are not serious, of course?”
“Indeed I am. And I must press the point.”
“Well, really, I can’t take such a thing seriously at all, Major Sampayo. You are naturally at liberty to entertain any ideas you wish as to my presence in Lisbon. But I am greatly astonished that you should have even broached such a subject.”
“I have a right to put the question to you, I think.”
“Well, I disagree with you, and absolutely decline to discuss it. You must have seen very little of the English in South Africa if your experiences have led you to believe that it is our custom to exchange confidences with a stranger. Possibly after you and I have had our proposed chat over our mutual experiences out there and get to know one another better, we may resume the subject. But not until then, if you please. And now, I must bid you good-night.”
He looked very angry and malicious; but I did not care for that. I was rather pleased than otherwise that Miralda should have spoken of me to him in such a way as to rouse his jealousy.
Sleep was almost out of the question for me that night. I was in a positive fever of unrest.
Did Miralda care for me? If so, why had she promised to marry Sampayo?
Over and over again I recalled every word that had passed between us that evening, and every glance she had given me. The first look at the moment of meeting had been one of surprise, but I had read no other feeling into it.
She had, however, been genuinely indignant when she heard that only business had brought me. And she had every right. I had carried matters far enough in Paris to warrant her in believing I cared for her. I had done everything I could to make my feelings plain. Then I had gone without a word, had remained away four months, and had now arrived “on business.” It was only human nature that she should resent such treatment.
Unexplained, my conduct was that of a cad and a coxcomb. She might well believe that in Paris I had spoken without meaning, had been amusing myself with a flirtation, and had forgotten her as soon as I had shaken the dust of the city off my feet. To follow to Lisbon on such an errand as the visconte had described and I had acquiesced in, was nothing short of a brutal insult to her.
But while her resentment was white-hot, I had made her see the truth. Her eyes had told me that she understood. And the explanation had shifted the axis of all her thoughts. I had come solely on her account, hurrying to her at the first moment I was at liberty to speak the words which had been impossible in Paris, and—she had pledged herself to another man.
If she cared for me—always that if—she would find herself playing the part she believed I had played. The charge of inconstancy was transferred from my shoulders to hers. And she had to face the task of telling me the truth. Her sudden agitation was intelligible enough. And she had undoubtedly been very deeply moved. That thought was as balm in Gilead to me.
I thought long and carefully over her manner at that point. She had thrown off her agitation with an effort and passed at once to the opposite extreme of indifference; she had plunged into a discussion of conventional trivialities of no interest to either of us, and had deftly fended off my attempts to refer to our former relations until she herself had mentioned them in a way that implied they were past and buried. And she had followed this with the news of the engagement.
The object might have been to spare us both from embarrassment. But I read more in it. That she should try to spare me pain was as natural as is the light when the sun shines. But she had not spared me. She would know that to refer to it in the light tone she had used would add to the shock; and there had not been a word of preparation and not one of regret.
Why?
I thought I could see the reason. She wished me to believe her heartless and unfeeling. She had regretted her involuntary agitation on learning the truth, lest I should believe she really cared. She had then acted designedly and with the set purpose of making me believe she had entirely forgotten the Paris episodes, could speak of them with complete indifference, and was happy in her engagement.
Again, why?
And again I thought I could see her reason. She felt there were circumstances behind her betrothal to Sampayo which shut out the possibility of its being broken and she wished to drive home that conviction upon me. She could not tell me what the facts and influences were which had decided her; so she deliberately blackened herself in my eyes, posing as a jilt who had first encouraged me to hope and had then thrown me over with a laugh and a careless toss of the head.
But I knew her too well to accept any such self-caricature as a true portrait, even without the help of all I had heard from Inez, from Barosa, and from the viscontesse.
Was it too late now to win? It might be; but it certainly was not too late to make a big effort. And such an effort I would make at once. If she had compromised herself in this wretched conspiracy business so far as to be under the thumb of Barosa and his associates, her very safety demanded that I should strive with might and main to break the power they held over her and set her free from it.
But my fear was that some other compelling influence was at work; and I looked to find it in her home. It was not the viscontesse, I was certain of her; but I knew very little yet of the visconte and nothing at all of the brother, Vasco, except that he was infatuated with Inez and was being properly fooled by her. I made my promised visit to the viscontesse on the following afternoon hoping to be able to resume the thread of the conversation at the reception. But no opportunity offered. She had some friends and I could not get a word with her alone; and Miralda did not come in until just as I was leaving.
But I learnt something from the conversation. It concerned mainly the personal side of the political situation. Every one had a grievance against M. Franco, the Dictator. In his zeal for economy he had swept away a host of sinecure positions about the Court; and had thus made enemies not only of every one who had been paid for doing nothing and their friends and relatives, but also of all who had been looking forward to such payments.
The visconte himself had held one of the best of these sinecures. He had been the royal cork-drawer or napkin ring-holder-in-chief, or something equally important, and the loss of the salary had been hotly resented.
It sounded intensely ridiculous; but the viscontesse herself was full of indignation; and her friends all agreed and joined in abusing the Government with a violence which, although entirely laughable, proved how widespread was the discontent among those who had been staunch in their loyalty.
It was on this feeling among the higher classes that Barosa was working on behalf of the Pretender, Dom Miguel.
Just as I was leaving, the viscontesse found a moment to tell me she wished to have had more opportunity of talking to me, so I promptly asked her to come to luncheon on the Stella the next day, and she was hesitating when Miralda came in. We were standing near the door and she joined us. She greeted me with just the same air of detached friendliness she had shown on the previous evening; but when her mother spoke of my invitation, she surprised me.
“It will be delightful, and I should like it above all things—that is if the invitation is to include me, Mr. Donnington?”
“Why, of course.”
“And can we have a little run out to sea? I love the sea you know.”
“It shall be exactly as you wish,” I replied, and having arranged that the launch was to be ready for them at noon, I went off delighted at the prospect of having Miralda and her mother to myself, for some hours.