But it was his turn now to hush Mrs.Gould.
"General Montero is going to speak," he whispered, and almost immediately added, in comic alarm, "Heavens! he's going to propose my own health, I believe." General Montero had risen with a jingle of steel scabbard and a ripple of glitter on his gold-embroidered breast; a heavy sword-hilt appeared at his side above the edge of the table.

In this gorgeous uniform, with his bull neck, his hooked nose flattened on the tip upon a blue-black, dyed moustache, he looked like a disguised and sinister vaquero.
The drone of his voice had a strangely rasping, soulless ring.

He floundered, lowering, through a few vague sentences; then suddenly raising his big head and his voice together, burst out harshly-- "The honour of the country is in the hands of the army.

I assure you I shall be faithful to it." He hesitated till his roaming eyes met Sir John's face upon which he fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure of the lately negotiated loan came into his mind.

He lifted his glass.
"I drink to the health of the man who brings us a million and a half of pounds." He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily with a half-surprised, half-bullying look all round the faces in the profound, as if appalled, silence which succeeded the felicitous toast.