ith us of the whole
twelve months," he answered, "and you will be able to be present at
them both."

"The prospect," I cried, "is delightful, and I will return with you,
Don Juan, with pleasure. I should be most ungrateful to refuse your
kind offer. I think I can answer for my cousins too, as they have
really only taken this trip to please me."

"Very well, then," he said rising, "that's settled; now we will go and
find the ladies. I have no doubt your cousins have arrived by this
time. I sent an automobile for them."

As I followed him, I flattered myself that I could persuade Dolores to
take that return journey with us to Europe, if any persuasion were
indeed necessary, by which it will be seen that I was acquiring a
certain amount of confidence in my powers over that young lady.

CHAPTER XV

THE ABBOT OF SAN JUAN

The two weeks which followed constituted, I have no hesitation in
saying, the gala fortnight of my existence.

I never could have imagined it possible that so much pleasure could
have been crowded into such a short time. But can it not be easily
believed that everything then was to me gilded with that supreme fine
gold, the glamour of a young love? Yes, I think even the old Don
himself saw it, and at any rate did not forbid it.

I went about with Dolores everywhere, even to church, at which she was
a regular attendant, and I flatter myself behaved very creditably
there, for though I was not a Roman Catholic like herself, yet I had
attended the Sunday evening ministrations of the monks of Bath, and
knew a good deal about it through the said monks' discourses.

I hope I don't make a mistake in calling them monks--if I do, I ask
their pardon. I certainly understood them to _say_ they were monks.

Be that as it may. I did not disgrace Dolores when I went with her to
the great cathedral in Valoro.

But our time there was by no means entirely spent in going to church.
Day after day the old Don engaged special trains in which we flew about
the Republic faring sumptuously everywhere, and on our return there
would generally be a dinner-party, followed by the theatre or the
opera--a magnificent house and performance--and as likely as not a ball
after that. Much more of it would have killed us all.

But the gay life mercifully drew towards a close, and Dolores and I
began to contemplate a pleasurable voyage back on that very ship on
which we had first met and loved.

Yes, loved; we were