that this somewhat exalted statement was decidedly a pose,
or a return of Urania Mannersley's old ironical style. I looked quietly
into her brown, near-sighted eyes; but, as once before, my glance seemed
to slip from their moist surface without penetrating the inner thought
beneath. "And what does Enriquez do for HIS part?" I asked smilingly.

I fully expected to hear that the energetic Enriquez was utilizing
his peculiar tastes and experiences by horse-breaking, stock-raising,
professional bull-fighting, or even horse-racing, but was quite
astonished when she answered quietly:--

"Enriquez is giving himself up to geology and practical metallurgy, with
a view to scientific, purely scientific, mining."

Enriquez and geology! In that instant all I could remember of it were
his gibes at the "geologian," as he was wont to term Professor Dobbs,
a former admirer of Miss Mannersley's. To add to my confusion Mrs.
Saltillo at the same moment absolutely voiced my thought.

"You may remember Professor Dobbs," she went on calmly, "one of the most
eminent scientists over here, and a very old Boston friend. He has
taken Enriquez in hand. His progress is most satisfactory; we have the
greatest hopes of him."

"And how soon do you both hope to have some practical results of his
study?" I could not help asking a little mischievously; for I somehow
resented the plural pronoun in her last sentence.

"Very soon," said Mrs. Saltillo, ignoring everything but the question.
"You know Enriquez's sanguine temperament. Perhaps he is already given
to evolving theories without a sufficient basis of fact. Still, he has
the daring of a discoverer. His ideas of the oolitic formation are not
without originality, and Professor Dobbs says that in his conception of
the Silurian beach there are gleams that are distinctly precious."

I looked at Mrs. Saltillo, who had reinforced her eyes with her old
piquant pince-nez, but could detect no irony in them. She was prettily
imperturbable, that was all. There was an awkward silence. Then it was
broken by a bounding step on the stairs, a wide-open fling of the door,
and Enriquez pirouetted into the room: Enriquez, as of old, unchanged
from the crown of his smooth, coal-black hair to the tips of his small,
narrow Arabian feet; Enriquez, with his thin, curling mustache, his
dancing eyes set in his immovable face, just as I had always known him!

He affected to lapse against the door for a minute, as if stagg