Chapter 13

DOLORES ON THE LOOK-OUT

Captain Sarrasin when he was in the hotel always had breakfast in his little sitting-room. A very modest breakfast it was, consisting invariably of a cup of coffee and some dry toast with a radish. Of late, when he emerged from his bedroom he always found a little china jar on his breakfast-table with some fresh flowers in it. He thought this a delightful attention at first, and assumed that it would drop after a day or two, like other formal civilities of a hotel-keeper. But the days went on and the flowers came, and Captain Sarrasin thought that at least he ought to make it known that he received and appreciated them, and was grateful.

So he took care to be in the breakfast-room one day while the waiter was laying out the breakfast things, and crowning the edifice metaphorically with the little china jar and its fresh flowers--roses this time. Sarrasin knew enough to know that the deftest-handed waiter in the world had never arranged that cluster of roses and moss and leaves.

'Now, look here, dear boy,' he asked of the waiter in his beaming way--Sarrasin hardly ever addressed any personage of humbler rank without some friendly and encouraging epithet, 'to whom am I indebted for these delightful morning gifts of flowers?'

'To Miss Dolores--Miss Paulo,' the man said. He was a Swiss, and spoke with a thick, Swiss accent.

'Miss Paulo--the daughter of the house?'

'Yes, sir; she arranges them herself every day.'

'Is that the tall and handsome young lady I sometimes see with Mr. Paulo in his room?'

'Yes; that is she.'

'But I want to thank her for her great kindness. Will you take a card from me, my dear fellow, and ask her if she will be good enough to see me?'

'Willingly, sir; Miss Dolores has her own room on this floor--No. 25. She is there every morning after she comes back from her early ride and until luncheon time.'

'After she comes back from her ride?'

'Yes, sir; Miss Dolores rides in the Park every morning and afternoon.'

This news somewhat dashed the enthusiasm of Captain Sarrasin. He liked a girl who rode, that was certain. Mrs. Sarrasin rode like that rarest of creatures, except the mermaid, a female Centaur, and if he had had a dozen daughters, they would all have been trained to ride, one better than the other. The riding, therefore, was clearly in the favour of Dolores, so far as Captain Sarrasin's estimate was concerned. But then the idea of a hotel-keeper's daughter riding in the Row and giving herself airs! He did not like that. 'When I was young,' he said, 'a girl wasn't ashamed of her father's business, and did not try to put on the ways of a class she did not belong to.' Still, he reminded himself that he was growing old, and that the world was becoming affected--and that girls now, of any order, were not like the girls in the dear old days when Mrs. Sarrasin was young. And in any case the morning flowers were a charming gift and a most delightful attention, and a gentleman must offer his thanks for them to the most affected young woman in the world. So he told the waiter that after breakfast he would send his card to Miss Paulo's room, and ask her to allow him to call on her.

'Miss Paulo will see you, of course,' the man replied. 'Mr. Paulo is generally very busy, and sees very few people, but Miss Paulo--she will see everybody for him.'

'Everybody? What about, my good young man?'

'But, monsieur, about everything--about paying bills--and complaints of gentlemen, and ladies who think they have not had value for their money, and all that sort of thing--monsieur knows.'

'Then the young lady looks after the business of the hotel?'

'Oh, yes, monsieur--always.'

That piece of news was a relief to Captain Sarrasin. Miss Dolores went up again high in his estimation, and he felt abashed at having wronged her even by the misconception of a moment. He consumed his coffee and his radish and dry toast, and he selected from the china jar a very pretty moss rose, and put it in his gallant old buttonhole, and then he rang for his friend the waiter, and sent his card to Miss Paulo. In a moment the waiter brought back the intimation that Miss Paulo would be delighted to see Captain Sarrasin at once.

Miss Paulo's door stood open, as if to convey the idea that it was an office rather than a young lady's boudoir--a place of business and not a drawing-room. It was a very pretty room, as Sarrasin saw at a glance when he entered it with a grand and old-fashioned bow, such as men make no more in these degenerate days. It was very quietly decorated with delicate colours, and a few etchings and many flowers; and Dolores herself came from behind her writing desk, smiling and blushing, to meet her tall visitor. The old soldier scanned her as he would have scanned a new recruit, and the result of his impressionist study was to his mind highly satisfactory. He already liked the girl.

'My dear young lady,' he began, 'I have to introduce myself--Captain Sarrasin. I have come to thank you.'

'No need to introduce yourself or to thank me,' the girl said, very simply. 'I have wanted to know you this long time, Captain Sarrasin, and I sent you flowers every morning, because I knew that sooner or later you would come to see me. Now won't you sit down, please?'

'But may I not thank you for your flowers?'

'No, no, it is not worth while. And besides, I had an interested object. I wanted to make your acquaintance and to talk to you.'

'I am so glad,' he said gravely. 'But I am afraid I am not the sort of man young ladies generally care to talk to. I am a battered old soldier who has been in many wars, as Burns says----'

'That is one reason. I believe you have been in South America?'

'Yes, I have been a great deal in South America.'

'In the Republic of Gloria?'

'Yes, I have been in the Republic of Gloria.'

'Do you know that the Dictator of Gloria is staying in this house?'

'My dear young lady, everyone knows _that_.'

'Are you on his side or against him?' Dolores asked bluntly.

'Dear young lady, you challenge me like a sentry.' And Captain Sarrasin smiled benignly, feeling, however, a good deal puzzled.

'I have been told that you are against him,' the girl said; 'and now that I see you I must say that I don't believe it.'

'Who told you that I was against him?' the stout old Paladin asked; 'and why shouldn't I be against him if my conscience directed me that way?'

'Well, it was supposed that you might be against him. You are both staying in this hotel, and, until the other day, you have never called upon him or gone to see him, or even sent your card to him. That seemed to my father a little strange. He talked of asking you frankly all about it. I said I would ask you. And I am glad to have got you here, Captain Sarrasin, to challenge you like a sentry.'

'Well, but now look here, my dear young lady--why should your father care whether I was for the Dictator or against him?'

'Because if you were against him it might not be well that you were in the same house,' Dolores answered with business-like promptitude and straightforwardness, 'getting to know what people called on him, and how long they stayed, and all that.'

'Playing the spy, in fact?'

'Such things have been done, Captain Sarrasin.'

'By gentlemen and soldiers, Miss Paulo?' and he looked sternly at her. The unabashed damsel did not quail in the least.

'By persons calling themselves gentlemen and soldiers,' she answered fearlessly. The old warrior smiled. He liked her courage and her frankness. It was clear that she and her father were devoted friends of the Dictator. It was clear that somebody had suspected him of being one of the Dictator's political enemies. He took to Dolores.

'My good young lady,' he said, 'you seem to me a very true-hearted girl. I don't know why, but that is the way in which I take your measure and add you up.'

Dolores was a little amazed at first; but she saw that his eyes expressed nothing save honest purpose, and she did not dream of being offended by his kindly patronising words.

'You may add me up in any way you like,' she said. 'I am pretty good at addition myself, and I think I shall come out that way in the end.'

'I know it,' he said, with a quite satisfied air, as if her own account of herself had settled any lingering doubt he might possibly have had upon his mind. 'Very well; now you say you can add up figures pretty well--and, in fact, I know you do, because you help your father to keep his books, now don't you?'

'Of course I do,' she answered promptly, 'and very proud of it I am that I can assist him.'

'Quite right, my dear. Well, now, as you are so good in figuring up things, I wonder could you figure _me_ up?'

There was something so comical in the question, and in the manner and look of the man who propounded it, that Dolores could not keep from a smile, and indeed could hardly prevent the smile from rippling into a laugh. For Captain Sarrasin threw back his head, stiffened up his frame, opened widely his grey eyes, compressed his lips, and in short put himself on parade for examination.

'Figure me up,' he said, 'and be candid with it, dear girl. Say what I come up to in your estimation.'

Dolores tried to take the whole situation seriously.

'Look into my eyes,' he said imperatively. 'Tell me if you see anything dishonest or disloyal, or traitorous there?'

With her never-failing shrewd common sense, the girl thought it best to play the play out. After all, a good deal depended on it, to her thinking. She looked into his eyes. She saw there an almost childlike sincerity of purpose. If truth did not lie in the well of those eyes, then truth is not to be found in mortal orbs at all. But the quick and clever Dolores did fancy that she saw flashing now and then beneath the surface of those eyes some gleams of fitfulness, restlessness--some light that the world calls eccentric, some light which your sound and practical man would think of as only meant to lead astray--to lead astray, that is, from substantial dividends and real property, and lucky strokes on the Stock Exchange, and peerages and baronetcies and other good things. There was a strong dash of the poetic about Dolores, for all her shrewd nature and her practical bringing-up, and her conflicts over hotel bills; and somehow, she could not tell why, she found that as she looked into the eyes of Captain Sarrasin her own suddenly began to get dimmed with tears.

'Well, dear girl,' he asked, 'have you figured me up, and can you trust me?'

'I have figured you up,' she said warmly, 'and I can trust you;' and with an impulse she put her hand into his.

'Trust me anywhere--everywhere?'

'Anywhere--everywhere!' she murmured passionately.

'All right,' he said, cheerfully. 'I have the fullest faith in you, and now that you have full faith in me we can come straight at things. I want you to know my wife. She would be very fond of you, I am quite sure. But, now, for the moment: You were wondering why I am staying in this hotel?'

'I was,' she said, with some hesitancy, 'because I didn't know you----'

'And because you were interested in the Dictator of Gloria?'

She felt herself blushing slightly; but his face was perfectly serious and serene. He was evidently regarding her only in the light of a political partisan. She felt ashamed of her reddening cheeks.

'Yes; I am greatly interested in him,' she answered quite proudly; 'so is my father.'

'Of course he is, and of course you are--and, of course, so is every Englishman and Englishwoman who has the slightest care for the future fortunes of Gloria--which may be one of the best homes in the world for some of our poor people from this stifling country, if only a man like Ericson can be left to manage it. Well, well, I am wandering off into matters which you young women can't be expected to understand, or to care anything about.'

'But I do understand them--and I do care a great deal about them,' Dolores said indignantly. 'My father understands all about Gloria--and he has told me.'

'I am glad to hear it,' Sarrasin said gravely. 'Well, now, to come back----' and he paused.

'Yes, yes,' she said eagerly, 'to come back?'

'I am staying in this hotel for a particular purpose. I want to look after the Dictator. That's the whole story. My wife and I have arranged it all.'

'You want to look after him? Is he in danger?' The girl was turning quite pale.

'Danger? Well, it is hard to say where real danger is. I find, as a rule, that threatened men live long, and that there isn't much real danger where danger is talked about beforehand, but I never act upon that principle in life. I am never governed in my policy by the fact that the cry of wolf has been often raised--I look out for the wolf all the same.'

'Has he enemies?'

'Has he enemies? Why, I wonder at a girl of your knowledge and talent asking a question like that! Is there a scoundrel in Gloria who is not his enemy? Is there a man who has succeeded in getting any sinecure office from the State who doesn't know that the moment Ericson comes back to Gloria out he goes, neck and crop? Is there a corrupt judge in Gloria who wouldn't, if he could, sentence Ericson to be shot the moment he landed on the coast of Gloria? Is there a perjured professional informer who doesn't hate the very name of Ericson? Is there a cowardly blackguard in the army, who has got promotion because the general liked his pretty wife--oh, well, I mean because the general happened to be some relative of his wife--is there any fellow of this kind who doesn't hate Ericson and dread his coming back to Gloria?'

'No, I suppose not,' Dolores sadly answered. Paulo's Hotel was like other hotels, a gossiping place, and it is to be feared that Dolores understood better than Captain Sarrasin supposed, the hasty and speedily-qualified allusion to the General and the pretty wife.

'Well, you see,' Sarrasin summed up, 'I happen to have been in Gloria, and know something of what is going on there. I studied the place a little bit before Ericson had left, and I got to know some people. I am what would have been called in other days a soldier of fortune, dear girl, although, Heaven knows! I never made much fortune by my soldiering--you should just ask my wife! But anyhow, you know, when I have been in a foreign country where things are disturbed people send to me and offer me jobs, don't you see? So in that way I found that the powers that be in Gloria at present'--Sarrasin was fond of good old phrases like 'the powers that be'--'the powers that be in Gloria have a terrible dread of Ericson's coming back. I know a lot about it. I can tell you they follow everything that is going on here. They know perfectly well how thick he is with Sir Rupert Langley, the Foreign Secretary, and they fancy that means the support of the English Government in any attempt to return to Gloria. Of course, we know it means nothing of the kind, you and I.'

'Of course, of course,' Dolores said. She did not know in the least whether it did or did not mean the support of the English Government; for her own part, she would have been rather inclined to believe that it