rtheless, in spite of his evident reticence, he was obliged to give
way to their entreaties, and, with a certain grim and uncompromising
truthfulness of statement, recounted some episodes of his journey. It
was none the less thrilling that he did it reluctantly, and in much the
same manner as he had answered his father's questions, and as he had
probably responded to the later cross-examination of Mr. Prince. He
did not tell it emotionally, but rather with the dogged air of one who
had been subjected to a personal grievance for which he neither asked
nor expected sympathy. When he did not raise his eyes to Maruja's, he
kept them fixed on his plate.

"Well," said Prince, when a long-drawn sigh of suspended emotion among
the guests testified to his powers as a caterer to their amusement,
"what do you say to some music with our coffee to follow the story?"

"It's more like a play," said Amita to Raymond. "What a pity Captain
Carroll, who knows all about Indians, isn't here to have enjoyed it.
But I suppose Maruja, who hasn't lost a word, will tell it to him."

"I don't think she will," said Raymond, dryly, glancing at Maruja, who,
lost in some intricate pattern of her Chinese plate, was apparently
unconscious that her host was waiting her signal to withdraw.

At last she raised her head, and said, gently but audibly, to the
waiting Prince,--

"It is positively a newer pattern; the old one had not that delicate
straw line in the arabesque. You must have had it made for you."

"I did," said the gratified Prince, taking up the plate. "What eyes
you have, Miss Saltonstall. They see everything."

"Except that I'm keeping you all waiting," she returned, with a smile,
letting the eyes in question fall with a half-parting salutation on
Guest as she rose. It was the first exchange of a common instinct
between them, and left them as conscious as if they had pressed hands.

The music gave an opportunity for some desultory conversation, in which
Mr. Prince and his young friend received an invitation from Maruja to
visit La Mision, and the party, by common consent, turned into the
conservatory, where the genial host begged them each to select a flower
from a few especially rare exotics. When Maruja received hers, she
said, laughingly, to Prince, "Will you think me very importunate if I
ask for another?" "Take what you like--you have only to name it," he
replied, gallantly. "But that's just what I can't do," responded