, as a matter of fact,
thoroughly got hold of the popular favour. His son is President of the
Republic at the present moment. Old Razzaro made a sort of family
living of the Presidency."

"And Don Juan d'Alta retired into private life?" I ventured.

"Into private life and the society of his reptiles," added the old
diplomatist, rising. "I think the latter have consoled him for many
disappointments."

"Whom did he marry?" I asked.

"A very beautiful French lady," he replied, "whose husband, a French
nobleman, had come to Aquazilia to try and make his fortune, and had
died in the effort."

"Poor man!" I commented. "And Don Juan married his widow?"

"Exactly; and this pretty little lady, Senorita Dolores, who is
returning to Valoro with us, is the result of the union. They say she
is the very image of her mother, who died when she was five."

"Then the mother must have been very beautiful," was my comment.

The old minister stopped and looked at me for some moments without
saying anything. Then, with a peculiar smile about the corners of his
good-natured mouth, shook his head and went slowly out of the
smoking-room.

CHAPTER XII

HELD UP

Rio with its heat, its tramways, and its great sea wall; its Botanical
Gardens in which once more I had the delight of losing myself with
Dolores, to the evident anxiety of her aunt and duenna, Mrs.
Darbyshire; it seemed so strange to find such a foreign little person
with such a distinctly English name. She, however, refused to be
beguiled away by St. Nivel to look at the giraffes. I think she began
to smell more than a rat when we reached the monkey house, and to doubt
whether his attentions to her were as disinterested as they appeared,
especially when she heard that I was his cousin.

To marry his poor relation--me--to a rich heiress--her niece
Dolores--no doubt struck her as an end worth taking some trouble about.
Probably she would have done the same herself.

Therefore as we approached our port of debarkation, after leaving Rio,
I began to find my little interviews with Dolores becoming restricted
more often by the presence of her aunt. Still the recollection of our
rambles at Rio, and the rides alone on the tops of the electric
trams--which are quite orthodox--remained with us; and if Mrs.
Darbyshire became more severe, were there not those little stolen
interviews in the dark part of the promenade deck, where the electric
light did not reach, wort