The younger man, whose hair gives promise of early threads of grey, enters with swift impetuosity, dashing a chance servitor out of the way and opening the inner door as if a gust of wind had come rioting through the corridors. "Where is Concha?" he cries as soon as he enters. "Here!" replies a voice, a little muffled, it is true, from a neighbouring room; "no, stay where you are! I shall be back in a moment." "Ah, Etienne--John, how are you? Have they given you any breakfast? Etienne, any more loves? There are four pretty girls in the Plaza Villarasa. I saw them on the balcony as I rode through with the Sagunto regiment the other day----" "Trust him for that!" comes the voice from behind the curtain. "My Lord Duke," says Etienne in a master-of-ceremonies' voice, "so long as I am permitted daily to gaze upon the beauty of your incomparable wife, how can this heart turn from that to the admiration of any meaner object?" "What nonsense is he talking now?" asks Concha, returning demurely. "I know at least three girls of this city of Valencia who have the best reasons for expecting M. de Saint Pierre to make proposals for the honour of their hands. But what can you expect of such a wretch?" "Well, Master Etienne," says Rollo, "you will now have a chance to forget Mistress Concha and make some fair Castilian happy. For I must send you immediately with these despatches to Madrid. You will stay a week and return with the answers. That will give such a lady-killer ample time to bring matters to a head with the most hard-hearted of the senoritas of the capital." "Ah," sighs Etienne, kissing a hand to Concha, as he prepares to take his leave, "your husband wrongs me. He who hath so much, misjudges me who have so little! Truly, I shall be soon able to say, turning about the old catch: "'_My soul is in Valencia, My body is in Madrid!_'" "Well, John, this is great seeing," said Rollo, when Etienne had departed to busy himself about horses and an escort; "what in the world has brought you hither? Surely your father cannot want you to make another thousand pounds in order that you may have the right to attend his twirling spindles from 8.30 every morning to 5.30 every night?" "Oh, I am a partner now," Mortimer answered, "even though the old boy insisted upon pocketing every penny of the profit on the Abbot's _Priorato_. Strict man of business, my father! He said it would teach me in the future to be spry about getting my goods shipped. And when I explained, he only said that what had been possible for him there in England, sitting at ease in his arm-chair, ought to have been possible for me on the spot and with money in my pocket!" "And what did you do?" asked Rollo, smiling. "Well, at any rate, I struck him for a commission on my having secured the order, and the Convent onions were good for the rest. So now I am a partner in the firm with a good quarter interest." "And what are you doing here? More onions?" laughed his friend.