第24章

"I want to speak with you," he said, with awkward directness. "Ieven thought of asking you to stroll with me in the garden.""Why not talk here?" she returned, changing her position, pointing to the other end of the sofa, and drawing the whole overflow of her skirt to one side. "It is not so very late, and Milly will return in a few moments."Her face was in shadow now, but there was a glow-worm light in her beautiful eyes that seemed faintly to illuminate her whole face.

He sank down on the sofa at her side, no longer the brilliant and ambitious politician, but, it seemed to him, as hopelessly a dreaming, inexperienced boy as when he had given her the name that now was all he could think of, and the only word that rose to his feverish lips.

"Yerba!"

"I like to hear you say it," she said quickly, as if to gloss over his first omission of her formal prefix, and leaning a little forward, with her eyes on his. "One would think you had created it. You almost make me regret to lose it."He stopped. He felt that the last sentence had saved him. "It is of that I want to speak," he broke out suddenly and almost rudely.

"Are you satisfied that it means nothing, and can mean nothing, to you? Does it awaken no memory in your mind--recall nothing you care to know? Think! I beg you, I implore you to be frank with me!"She looked at him with surprise.

"I have told you already that my present name must be some absurd blunder, or some intentional concealment. But why do you want to know NOW?" she continued, adding her faint smile to the emphasis.

"To help you!" he said, eagerly. "For that alone! To do all I can to assist you, if you really believe, and want to believe, that you have another. To ask you to confide in me; to tell me all you have been told, all that you know, think you know, or WANT to know about your relationship to the Arguellos--or to--any one. And then to devote myself entirely to proving what you shall say is your desire. You see, I am frank with you, Yerba. I only ask you to be as frank with me; to let me know your doubts, that I may counsel you; your fears, that I may give you courage.""Is that all you came here to tell me?" she asked quietly.

"No, Yerba," he said, eagerly, taking her unresisting but indifferent hand, "not all; but all that I must say, all that Ihave the right to say, all that you, Yerba, would permit me to tell you NOW. But let me hope that the day is not far distant when Ican tell you ALL, when you will understand that this silence has been the hardest sacrifice of the man who now speaks to you.""And yet not unworthy of a rising politician," she added, quickly withdrawing her hand. "I agree," she went on, looking towards the door, yet without appearing to avoid his eager eyes, "and when Ihave settled upon 'a local habitation and a name' we shall renew this interesting conversation. Until then, as my fourth official guardian used to say--he was a lawyer, Mr. Hathaway, like yourself--when he was winding up his conjectures on the subject--all that has passed is to be considered 'without prejudice.'""But Yerba"--began Paul, bitterly.

She slightly raised her hand as if to check him with a warning gesture. "Yes, dear," she said suddenly, lifting her musical voice, with a mischievous side-glance at Paul, as if to indicate her conception of the irony of a possible application, "this way.

Here we are waiting for you." Her listening ear had detected Milly's step in the passage, and in another moment that cheerful young woman discreetly stopped on the threshold of the room, with every expression of apologetic indiscretion in her face.

"We have finished our talk, and Mr. Hathaway has been so concerned about my having no real name that he has been promising me everything, but his own, for a suitable one. Haven't you, Mr.

Hathaway?" She rose slowly and, going over to Milly, put her arm around her waist and stood for one instant gazing at him between the curtains of the doorway. "Good night. My very proper chaperon is dreadfully shocked at this midnight interview, and is taking me away. Only think of it, Milly; he actually proposed to me to walk in the garden with him! Good night, or, as my ancestors--don't forget, MY ANCESTORS--used to say: 'Buena noche--hasta manana!'"She lingered over the Spanish syllables with an imitation of Dona Anna's lisp, and with another smile, but more faint and more ghostlike than before; vanished with her companion.

At eight o'clock the next morning Paul was standing beside his portmanteau on the veranda.

"But this is a sudden resolution of yours, Hathaway," said Mr.

Woods. "Can you not possibly wait for the next train? The girls will be down then, and you can breakfast comfortably.""I have much to do--more than I imagined--in San Francisco before Ireturn," said Paul, quickly. "You must make my excuses to them and to your wife.""I hope," said Woods, with an uneasy laugh, "you have had no more words with Don Caesar, or he with you?""No," said Paul, with a reassuring smile, "nothing more, I assure you.""For you know you're a devilish quick fellow, Hathaway," continued Woods, "quite as quick as your friend Pendleton. And, by the way, Baker is awfully cut up about that absurd speech of his, you know.