e reply. "One must look to the future. Many
have been ruined by success, because it took them by surprise. In case we
succeed, this one will serve. The Church does not want its kings to be
capable--remember that."

"But what does Spain want?" inquired the leader.

"Spain doesn't know."

"And this Prince of ours, whom you have asked to be your king. Is not
that a spoke in your wheel?" asked the man of few words.

"A loose spoke which will drop out. No one--not even Prim--thinks that he
will last ten years. He may not last ten months."

"But you have to reckon with the man. This son of Victor Emmanuel is
clever and capable. One can never tell what may arise in a brain that
works beneath a crown."

"We have reckoned with him. He is honest. That tells his tale. No honest
king can hope to reign over this country in their new Constitution. It
needs a Bourbon or a woman."

The quick, colourless eyes rested on Mon's face for a moment, and--who
knows?--perhaps they picked up Mon's secret in passing.

"Something dishonest, in a word," put in the Pole.

But nobody heeded him; for the word was with the leader.

"When last we met," he said at length, "and you received a large sum of
money, you made a distinct promise; unless my memory deceives me."

He paused, and no one suggested that his memory had ever made slip or
lapse in all his long career.

"You said you would not ask for money again unless you could show
something tangible--a fortress taken and held, a great General bought, a
Province won. Is that so?"

"Yes," answered Mon.

"Or else," continued the speaker, "in order to meet the very just
complaint from other countries, such as Poland for instance, that Spain
has had more than her share of the common funds--you would lay before us
some proposal of self-help, some proof that Spain in asking for help is
prepared to help herself by a sacrifice of some sort."

"I said that I would not ask for any sum that I could not double," said
Mon.

The little man sat blinking for some minutes silent in that absolute
stillness which is peculiar to great heights--and is so marked at
Montserrat that many cannot sleep there.

"I will give you any sum that you can double," he said, at length.

"Then I will ask you for three million pesetas."

All turned and looked at him in wonder. The fat man gave a gasp. With
three million pesetas he could have made a Polish republic. Mon only
smiled.

"For every million pesetas t