“Of course,” continued Blanco absently, “no one could regret more profoundly than the Grand Duke any accident or fatality which might befall his royal kinsman, yet even the holy saints cannot prevent evil chances!” He paused to sip his coffee.  “At the right of ’Louis, the Dreamer,’ as he is called, sits the Count Borttorff, who is not greatly in favor with Prince Karyl.  He, too, is a Galavian of noble birth, but Paris knows him better than Puntal.  He on the left, the man with the puffed eyes and the dissipated mouth—­you will notice also a scar over the left temple—­” Blanco was regarding his cigarette tip as he flecked an ash to the floor—­“is Monsieur Jusseret supposed to be high in the affairs of the French Cabinet Noir.”

“There is one more—­and a vacant chair,” suggested Benton.

The toreador nodded.  “True, I had not forgotten the other.  Tall, black-haired, not unlike yourself in appearance, Senor, save for a heavier jaw and the mustache which points upward.  He is an Englishman by birth, a native of the world by adoption.  Once he bore a British army commission.  Now he is seen in distinguished society”—­Blanco laughed—­“when distinguished society wants something done which clean men will not do.  His name, just now, is Martin.  In many quarters he is better known as the English Jackal.  Where one sees him one may scent conspiracy.”

In all the life and color compassed between the four walls of Moorish tiles and arches, Benton felt the magnet of the group irresistibly drawing his eyes to itself.

“And this gathering about a table for a cup of coffee, in Cadiz—­what of it?” argued Benton.  He tried to speak as if his curiosity were dilute and his thoughts west of the Atlantic.  “Are they not all known here?”

Again Blanco gave the expressive Spanish shrug.

“Few people here know any of them.  I only said, Senor, that if any chance should cause Galavia to mourn her new King that same chance would elevate the tall, pale gentleman from a cafe table to a throne.  I did not say that the chance would occur.”

“And yet?” urged Benton, his eyes narrowing, “your words seem to hint more than they express.  What is it, Manuel?”

The Spaniard took a handful of matches from a porcelain receptacle on the table.  He laid one down.

“Let that match,” he smilingly suggested, “stand for the circumstance of the Grand Duke leaving Paris for Cadiz which is—­well, nearer to Puntal—­and less observant than Paris.”  He laid another on the marble table-top with its sulphur head close to the first, so that the two radiated from a common center like spokes from a hub.  “Regard that as a coincidence of the arrival of the Count Borttorff from the other direction, but at the same time, and at the precise season of the coronation and marriage of the King.”  He looked at the two matches, then successively laid down others, all with the heads at the common center.  “That,” he said, “is the joining of the group by the distinguished Frenchman—­that the presence of the English Jackal—­that is the chance that runs against any King or Queen of meeting death.  That—­” he struck another match and held it a moment burning in his fingers “—­regard that, Senor, as the flaring up of ambitions that are thwarted by a life or two.”