"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 Señorita Olivia to the station, where we were stopped."
"I thought you would," he said, with a grin. "But it is impossible that the Señorita 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.
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 Señorita 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 Señorita 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.