"Destroy them?" I cried indignantly. "Really, Senorita!"
"You are Harry's friend," she said. "I thought men did little things
like that for one another."
"Little things!" I gasped. But I recognised that it would be waste of
breath to argue against a morality so crude.
"You shall take Harry's opinion upon that point," said I.
"Or perhaps Harry will take mine," she said softly, with a far-away
gaze; and the fly stopped at the station. I bought Olivia's ticket, I
placed her bag in the carriage, I stepped aside to let her mount the
step; and I knocked against a brilliant creature with a sword at his
side--he was merely a railway official. I begged his pardon, but he
held his ground.
"Senor, you have, no doubt, his Excellency's permit for the Senorita
to travel," he said, holding out his hand.
I was fairly staggered, but I did not misunderstand the man. Ballester
had foreseen that Olivia would follow her father, and he meant to keep
her in Santa Paula. I fumbled in my pocket to cover my confusion.
"I must have left it behind," I said lamely. "But of course you know
me--his Excellency's secretary."
"Who does not?" said the official, bowing politely. "And there is
another train in the afternoon, so that the Senorita will, I hope, not
be greatly inconvenienced."
We got out of the station somehow. I was mad with myself. I had let
myself be misled by the belief that Ballester was indulging in one of
his exhibitions as a great gentleman. Whereas he was carefully
isolating Olivia so that she might be the more helplessly at his
disposition. We stumbled back again into a carriage. I dared not look
at Olivia.
"The Calle Madrid!" I called to the driver, and Olivia cried "No!" She
turned to me, with a spot of colour burning in each cheek, and her
eyes very steady and ominous.
"Will you tell him to drive to the President's?" she said calmly.
The conventions are fairly strict in Maldivia. Young ladies do not as
a rule drop in casually upon men in the morning, and certainly not
upon Presidents. However, conventions are for the unharassed. We drove
to the President's. A startled messenger took in Olivia's name, and
she was instantly admitted. I went to my office, but I left the door
ajar. For down the passage outside of it Olivia would come when she
had done with Juan Ballester. I waited anxiously for a quarter of an
hour. Would she succeed with him? I had no great hopes. Anger so well
became her. But as the second quarter drew on, my hopes rose; and when
I heard the rustle of her dress, I flung open the door. A messenger
was escorting her, and she just shook her head at me.
"What did he say?" I asked in English, and she replied in the same
language.
"He will not let me go. He was--passionate. Underneath the passion he
was hard. He is the cruellest of men."
"I will see you this afternoon," said I; and she passed on. I
determined to have it out with Ballester at the earliest possible
moment. And within the hour he gave me the opportunity. For he came
into the room and said:
"Carlyon, I have not had my letters this morning.
"No, your Excellency," I replied. I admit that my heart began to beat
more quickly than usual. "I took the Senorita Olivia to the station,
where we were stopped."
"I thought you would," he said, with a grin. "But it is impossible
that the Senorita should leave Santa Paula."
"But you can't keep her here!" I cried. "It's--it's----" "Tyrannical"
would not do, nor would "autocratic." Neither epithet would sting him.
At last I got the right one.
"Your Excellency, it's barbaric!"
Juan Ballester flushed red. I had touched him on the raw. To be a
thoroughly civilised person conducting a thoroughly civilised
Government over a thoroughly civilised community--that was his wild,
ambitious dream, and in rosy moments he would even flatter himself
that his dream was realised.
"It's nothing of the kind," he exclaimed. "Don Santiago is a dangerous
person. I was moved by chivalry, the most cultured of virtues, to let
him go unpunished. But I am bound, from the necessities of the State,
to retain some pledge for his decent behaviour."
The words sounded very fine and politic, but they could not obscure
the springs of his conduct. He had first got Harry Vandeleur out of
the way; then, and not till then, he had pounced upon Don Santiago.
His aim had been to isolate Olivia. There was very little chivalry
about the matter.
"Besides," he argued, "if there were any barbarism--and there
isn't--the Senorita can put an end to it by a word."
"But she won't say it!" I cried triumphantly. "No, she is already
pledged. She won't say it."
Juan Ballester looked at me swiftly with a set and lowering face. No
doubt I had gone a step too far with him. But I would not have taken
back a word at that moment--no, not for the monopoly of green paint. I
awaited my instant dismissal, but he suddenly tilted back his chair
and grinned at me like a schoolboy.
"I like a good spirit," he said, "whether it be in the Senorita or in
my private secretary."
It was apparent that he did not think much of me as an antagonist.
"Well," I grumbled, "Harry Vandeleur will be back in three weeks, and
your Excellency must make your account with him."
"Yes, that's true," said Ballester, and--I don't know what it was in
him. It was not a gesture, for he did not move; it was not a smile,
for his face did not change. But I was immediately and absolutely
certain that it was not true at all. Reflection confirmed me. He had
taken so much pains to isolate Olivia that he would not have
overlooked Harry Vandeleur's return. Somewhere, on some pretext, at
Trinidad, or at our own port here, Las Cuevas, Harry Vandeleur would
be stopped. I was sure of it. The net was closing tightly round
Olivia. This morning the affair had seemed so simple--a mere matter of
a six hours' journey in a train. Now it began to look rather grim. I
stole a glance at Juan. He was still sitting with his chair tilted
back and his hands in his pockets, but he was gazing out of the
window, and his face was in repose. I recalled Olivia's phrase: "He is
the cruellest of men." Was she right? I wondered. In any case, yes,
the affair certainly began to look rather grim.