General Vincente, who had just finished his wine, wiped his moustache delicately with his table-napkin. He was thinking—quickly, systematically, as men learn to think under fire. Perhaps, indeed, he had the thoughts half matured in his mind—as the greatest general the world has seen confessed that he ever had—that he was never taken quite by surprise. Vincente smiled as he thought: a habit he had acquired on the field, where a staff, and perhaps a whole army, took its cue from his face and read the turn of fortune there. Then he looked up straight at Estella, who was watching him.
‘Can you start on a journey, now—in five minutes?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered, rising and going towards the door.
‘Have you a white mantilla among your travelling things?’ he asked again.
Estella turned at the doorway and nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said again.
‘Then take it with you, and a cloak, but no heavy luggage.’
‘You can come with us?’ said the General to Concha, half command, half interrogation.
‘You may be wanted. I have a plan—a little plan,’ and he gave a short laugh. ‘It may succeed.’
He went to a side table, where some cold meats still stood, and, taking up a small chicken daintily with a fork, he folded it in a napkin.
‘It will be Saturday,’ he said simply, ‘before we have reached our journey’s end, and you will be hungry. Have you a pocket?’
‘Has a priest a pocket?’ asked Concha, with a grim humour, and he slipped the provisions into the folds of his cassock. He was still eating a biscuit hurriedly.
‘I believe you have no money?’ said the General suddenly.
‘I have only enough,’ admitted the old man, ‘to take me back to Ronda; whither, by the way, my duty calls me.’
‘I think not. Your Master can spare you for a while; my mistress cannot do without you.’
At this moment Estella came back into the room ready for her journey. The girl had changed of late. Her face had lost a little roundness and had gained exceedingly in expression. Her eyes, too, were different. That change had come to them which comes to all women between the ages of twenty and thirty, quite irrespective of their state. A certain restlessness, or a quiet content, are what one usually sees in a woman’s face. Estella’s eyes wore that latter look, which seems to indicate a knowledge of the meaning of life and a contentment that it should be no different.