'The bird has flown: she will shelter in
neither your nest nor in mine, Smithson. You have lost her--and so have
I. We may as well be friends in misfortune.'
He was haggard, livid with grief and anger. He looked ten years older
than he had looked the other night at the ball, when his dash and
swagger, and handsome Spanish head had been the admiration of the room.
Smithson was very angry, but he was not a fighting man. He had enjoyed
various opportunities for distinguishing himself in that line in the
island of Cuba; but he had always avoided such opportunities. So now,
after a good deal of bluster and violent language, which Montesma took
as lightly as if it had been the whistling of the wind in the shrouds,
poor Smithson calmed down, and allowed Gomez de Montesma to leave the
yacht, with his portmanteaux, unharmed. He meant to take the first
steamer for the Spanish Main, he told Smithson. He had had quite enough
of Europe.
'I daresay it will end in your marrying her,' he said, at the last
moment. 'If you do, be kind to her.
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