The Car of Destiny
as some. I said to myself, as this car of the Duke’s is new, and he
doesn’t drive it himself, chances are he’s never had a motor before, and
wouldn’t have a garage in Madrid, though he does live here part of the
year and must have fine stables. I inquired what was the best garage
besides ours, and strolled round, thinking the chauffeur would have gone
straight to the Duke with his news. I found the place, and all the chaps
were standing outside open doors, watching a couple of dogs having a
fight. I walked in, without a word to anyone, though I’d have said I came
from the Duke if I’d had to. There was the car; and before one of those
blessed dogs had chewed the other’s nose off, I’d polished up my little
job. Then I came to you, feeling a bit better than a few minutes before.”
“You ought to be crushed with remorse,” said I; but I’m afraid I grinned;
and Dick remarked that if he were King of England he’d give Ropes a
knighthood.
“Heaven knows what the next move will be,” I commented, when the avenger
had gone, not too stricken in spirit. “It begins to look as though the
enemy would stick at little, and we can’t go on giving tit for tat.”
“He won’t take open action against you for the present,” said the Cherub,
“as he isn’t sure you aren’t Cristóbal O’Donnel; and you’re warned if he
tries to strike in the dark. He’s probably found out through the Ministry
of War that Cristóbal’s on leave, so to rid himself of your company he’s
resorted to the only means which occurred to him.”
“I have to thank you that he had no surer means,” I said.
“It’s the fashion in Spain, if a friend wants a thing, to tell him it is
his,” replied Colonel O’Donnel. “You wanted me for a father, Pilar for a
sister. I said, ‘We are yours.’ There’s not much to be thankful for. I
would do ten times more for your father’s son; and my confessor’s a
sympathetic man. Besides, to tell you a secret of mine which even Pilar
doesn’t know, though she has most others at her finger-end, your mother
was my first love. I adored her! You have her eyes!”
Whereupon I shook hands with the Cherub.
XVIII
THE MAN WHO LOVED PILAR
When Ropes had gone to send a telegram to Paris, Dick and I talked the
matter over from so many points of view, that Colonel O’Donnel apparently
went to sleep. It was only when I burst into vituperation against Carmona,
that the excellent man suddenly showed signs of life.
“I’ve been thinking,” said he, and I found myself cheering up at the
statement; for I had noticed that, though the Cherub often had the air of
being silent through laziness; that from his mellifluous Andaluz he
discarded all possible consonants as he would discard the bones of fish;
yet, with his murmurings, invariably rolled from his tongue some jewel of
good sense.
“We have a friend near Madrid,” said he, “who has an automobile. I know
little about such things; but when I heard that you had a twenty-four
horse-power Gloria, I thought, ‘It is the same as the Conde de Roldan’s.’
It will be days before your new parts can come from Paris, even if you
send Ropes; and there are few automobiles on sale here, if any. It’s a
hundred chances to one you could get parts to fit your car in that way.
But if Don Cipriano’s car is what I think, he will give you what you want.
When the new parts arrive, they will be for him.”
“Colonel O’Donnel,” said Dick, “you and your family are bricks!”
“That’s true,” said I; “but if you could persuade your friend to such an
act of generosity, I couldn’t accept. I—”
“Oh,” said the good man, with cherubic slyness, “he would give his left
hand for such a chance to please us! Perhaps you haven’t noticed that my
_nina_ is rather attractive; but it has not escaped the observation of Don
Cipriano.”
So the wind blew from that quarter! I threw a glance at Dick, and saw on
his face the same expression of disconcerted _amour propre_ I had once
seen when a bullet went whistling by his nose. But he said nothing about
either missile; and now it was left for me to justify our appreciation of
the señorita.
Ordinarily, if there is one thing which the Cherub loves, it is to dawdle,
but now he rose without a sigh and remarked that there was no time to
waste. He must fetch Pilar.
“She will have gone to bed,” I objected.
The Cherub smiled. Pilar go to bed at half-past ten on her first night in
Madrid after months of absence? Not she. Her father was willing to bet
that she was at her window looking down upon the street, and wishing she
had been born a man that she might be in it. “Night is the time for
amusement in Madrid,” said he. “One can lie in bed till afternoon without
missing anything; but at night—that is the time to be alive here! And
though our home is in the southern country, when we are in Madrid my Pilar
and I, we are true Madrileños. Had she and I been alone, she would have
made me take her to the theatre or circus. We should not have got home
till one: and then I should have had to give her supper. Oh, she will be
enchanted when I call her back to life!”
With that he trotted off, and before it seemed that he could have
explained anything, he had brought Pilar to us in triumph, her hat on her
head, dimples in her cheeks, and stars in her eyes. “I’m ready!” she
exclaimed.
“Ready?” I echoed. “For what?”
“Why to drive with you all to Don Cipriano’s! What else? We mustn’t lose a
minute, or our bad fairy will have time to work some other evil charm
before we’ve remedied the first. Oh, I may be only a girl, and not of
importance; but Don Cipriano thinks me important, and I shall have to be
there to make smiles at him. He has a Gloria, and it is twenty-four
horse-power. Father sent to order a carriage while I put on my hat and
coat. Don Cipriano’s place is only half an hour out of Madrid, even with a
‘simón.’ He breeds horses, and oh, such dogs! Come along—come along!”
“At this time of night?” said Dick. “He’ll think we’re mad!”
“It’s always early till to-morrow morning in Madrid,” laughed Pilar. “Ah,
how nice to have an excitement!”
“He won’t be at home,” said Dick.
“Yes, he will. San Cristóbal will keep him there.”
Before we knew what we were doing, this small Spanish whirlwind had swept
us downstairs in her train, into the vehicle which had actually arrived,
and out into the midst of a night-scene as lively as a fair. Many shops
were open and brilliantly illuminated. Café windows blazed like diamonds;
half the population of Madrid was in the streets, and a stranger might
have thought that something unusual had happened; but Pilar assured us it
was “always like that.” “You can live in the street if you like, in
Madrid,” said she, “and I should think lots of quite charming people do.
There are sweets and fruit when you’re hungry, and water and wine and
fresh milk of goats when you’re thirsty, cool doorways or nice hot
pavements to sleep on when you’re tired, with lettuce leaves or a cabbage
for a pillow, all at a cost of a penny or two a day; and if you’re clever
somebody passing by will give you that penny. So, rich or poor, with a
palace or no home, you can be happy in Madrid.”
“I wonder how you’d like New York?” muttered Dick.
“That depends on the person I lived with!” said Pilar.
Soon we had left the gold and crimson glow of the streets, and were out in
the blue night. Over the Puente de Toledo we passed, and on along a broad
white road.
Pilar had said that we would reach our destination in half an hour; but
her enthusiasm ran faster than our horses; and it was nearly midnight when
we stopped in front of a tall archway that glimmered in the dark. A
clanging bell had to be pulled, and was echoed by a musical baying of many
dogs. “The darlings!” exclaimed Pilar. “I know their voices. It’s Melampo,
and Cubillon, and Lubina, the dearest pets of all; named after the dogs
who went with the shepherds to see the Christ-child in His cradle—you
remember—so they can never go mad.”
By this time the gate was open, and a wave of beautiful greyhounds surged
round us, although called imperatively back by a man who looked like a
cross between a porter and a gamekeeper. Then came a cordial burst of
recognition between the Cherub, Pilar, and the servant. We drove into a
courtyard, and before we could descend from our carriage the master of the
house had appeared at a lighted doorway, tall, brown, ruddy, picturesque
in Spanish riding breeches and short coat; a handsome man of thirty-five,
perhaps, whose face lit from surprise to rapture at sight of Pilar. Dick
and I came in for a welcome too, though I could see that the Conde de
Roldan was not easy in his mind about these young men who seemed on terms
of intimacy with his friends.
From the courtyard we passed through a doorway into a patio, and from the
_patio_ into a nondescript room which could have belonged to no one but a
bachelor and a sportsman. There was, however, a mother, and the poor lady
would have been torn from her bed to greet the welcome ones, had not the
father and daughter protested. To-morrow, if all went well, they would
come again, and see dear Doña Rosita; but now, let her sleep. We were here
on business.
“May I explain you?” Pilar appealed to me. “Don Cipriano is safe. And I
want him to be interested.”
Poor Don Cipriano! He had visibly a bad half moment, trembling lest we had
rushed out to announce my engagement to the adorable Pilarcita; but it was
good to see the light come back to his eyes when he heard that I—blind
worm—had fallen in love with another girl. Clever Pilarcita made this fact
clear, so that Don Cipriano’s jealous heart might warm to me before he
knew what thing was wanted. Dick became tolerable also, as a friend
following in the train of my adventures; and soon the poor fellow was
ready to put not only the gearing of his motor-car, but his house and
everything in it, at our service.
He blessed his patron saint for bringing us to his door, and for
permitting him to have ridden home from a distant farm in time to greet
us; he roundly cursed the Duke of Carmona, consigning him to Purgatory for
a longer period than usual; and when everyone of us (except Dick) was in
the best of humours with everybody else, we paid a visit to his car.
She might, in all but colour, have been twin-sister to mine. There seemed
reason to hope that the pinions of this Gloria would fit the other Gloria,
and that no time might be lost in making the experiment, the Conde de
Roldan volunteered to spin us into Madrid, letting our “simón” go back
empty. If we decieved ourselves, rather than I should be delayed (said
he), his car was mine to take where I would, and the Cherub stepped on my
foot to check a refusal.
There was a chauffeur in this interesting household, but he was several
other things as well, and was a better dog-doctor than the vet. At that
moment he was assisting at an addition to the family of Lubina’s daughter;
but in any case, Don Cipriano, protested, he would have allowed no one to
drive us save himself.
We raced to Madrid in a fourth of the time we had taken in coming; and two
hours after the moment when we had news of the disaster, we arrived at the
garage of my injured Gloria.
A somnolent night-porter (one of the few persons in Madrid who appeared to
use the night for sleep) let us in; and at the sound of our entrance the
figure of a man sprang from the cushions of my car. Pilar gave a cry,
which changed to a laugh as she saw that it was Ropes.
“San Cristóbal failed you for a few minutes this evening, didn’t he? But
he’s going to make up for it now,” she said. “And I’m going to see him do
it, if it takes all night.”
In vain did the Cherub try to persuade her that it would be well to let
him escort her home, as the experiment would be a long affair. Nobody