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 senorita.

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 smil