“I have my charge.  I shall fulfil it,” she said—­determined, and not without a suggestion of coyness withal.

Juanita was lying in wait for a glance from Sarrion and when she received it she made a little movement of the eyelids, telling him to take Cousin Peligros away.

“You will stay the night,” said Sarrion to Evasio Mon.

“No, my friend.  Thank you very much.  I cherish a hope of getting through the lines to-night to Pampeluna.  I came indeed to offer my poor services as escort to these ladies who will surely be safer at Pampeluna.”

“Then you think that they will besiege Torre Garda,” asked Sarrion, innocently.  “One never knows, my friend—­one never knows.  It seems to me that the firing is nearer this afternoon.”

Sarrion laughed.

“You are always hearing guns.”

Mon turned and looked at him and there was a suggestion of melancholy in his smile.

“Ah!  Ramon,” he said.  “You and I have heard them all our lives.”

And there was perhaps a second meaning in his words, known only to Sarrion, whose face softened for an instant.

“Let us have some coffee,” he said, turning to Cousin Peligros.  “Will you see to it, Peligros—­in the library?”

So Peligros walked across the broad terrace with the mincing steps taught in the thirties, leaving Mon hatless with a bowed head according to the etiquette of those leisurely days.  He was all things, to all men.

“By the way ...” said Sarrion, and followed her without completing his sentence.

So Juanita and Evasio Mon were left alone on the terrace.  Juanita was sitting rather upright in a garden chair.  The only seat near to her was the easy chair just vacated by Cousin Peligros.  Mon looked at it.  He glanced at Juanita and then drew it forward.  She turned, and with a smile and gesture invited him to be seated.  A watchful look came into Evasio Mon’s quick eyes behind the glasses that reflected the last rays of the setting sun.  For the young and the guilty, silence has a special terror.  Mon had dealt with the young and the guilty all his life.  He sat down without speaking.  He was waiting for Juanita.  Juanita moved her toe within her neat black slipper, looking at it critically.  She was waiting for Evasio Mon.  He paused as a duellist may pause with his best weapons laid out on the table before him, wondering which one to select.  Perhaps he suspected that Juanita held the keenest; that deadly plain-speaking.

His subtle training had taught him to sink self so completely that it was easy to him to insinuate his mind into the thoughts of another; to understand them, almost to sympathise with them.  But Juanita puzzled him.  There is no face so baffling as that which a woman shows the world when she is hiding her heart.

“I spoke as a friend,” said Mon, “when I recommended you to allow me to escort you to Pampeluna.”

“I know that you always speak as a friend,” answered Juanita quietly, “... of mine.  Not of Marcos, perhaps.”