"Perhaps fifty." "Then if you have all the paisanos at your back you need fear nothing from the Cabildo if you happened to quarrel with them?" "In my own partido I am king, and fear no one." "Answer me yet another question. Who was it that drove Beresford from the Plaza Mayor, and so insured his destruction on the 12th August?" "Juan Martin Puyrredon and my nephew." "Another question. What troops drove back the English columns on the 5th July?" "The Patricios. I am not a school-boy that you should ask me questions that every one knows." "Well, I will ask you no more. But look you here; you are an American, and are king, as you say, in your own partido. Don Juan Martin Puyrredon, Don Martin Rodriguez, and all the other comandantes are just as powerful in their districts as you are in yours; the strength of Buenos Aires is in the native militia, who obey Don Cornelio Saavedra, everywhere the strength is in the hands of Americans; where the strength is, there the power will go. They have turned Don Gregorio out of the Cabildo, the Spaniards are to have all the power to themselves. Think you this can last? No, I tell you your father must go back to that Cabildo. You must keep up your regiment, and when the day comes your strength and influence will put him there." "It may be," replied Don Gregorio, again leaning back lazily in his chair; "but for the present we have other things to think of. You did not come here to tell me that." "No, but if you marry Mauricia you secure your power and influence. If you do not, your help will never be of any service to your father." "Tales, my friend, why should I marry her? She is better off here with me now than she ever was before, or was ever likely to be." "You think so, but I doubt it. She must love you very dearly, or she would not have run away from her home with you. She would be proud to be your wife, now she is to you as your horse or your dog, you can turn her away when you are tired of her. She has sacrificed everything for you, but she has no claim upon you." "She has more than a claim, she has power over me. She knows that I can refuse her nothing; this house, everything that I have is hers, she has only to ask, and she knows it." "Has she ever asked you for anything?" "Never. She is with me because she loves me, and I love her." "Has she ever asked to see her father, or any of her family?" "Never. I never speak to her about them, and I never wish her to see them again." "Yet she was much attached to them all. Do you think she has forgotten them?" As Don Gregorio did not answer this question, Evaña continued: "Men cut themselves off from their families and form homes for themselves, but women never forget the homes of their childhood. It may be a light thing to you to quarrel with your father, but it will be a sore trial to Mauricia to lose hers, you have blasted her life for her."