that's me, ma'am."

Heyst saw the girl's eyes turn towards Mr. Jones's secretary and rest
blankly on his face. Ricardo, however, looked vaguely into space,
and, with faint flickers of a smile about his lips, made conversation
indefatigably against the silence of his entertainers. He boasted
largely of his long association with Mr. Jones--over four years now, he
said. Then, glancing rapidly at Heyst:

"You can see at once he's a gentleman, can't you?"

"You people," Heyst said, his habitual playful intonation tinged with
gloom, "are divorced from all reality in my eyes."

Ricardo received this speech as if he had been expecting to hear
those very words, or else did not mind at all what Heyst might say.
He muttered an absent-minded "Ay, ay," played with a bit of biscuit,
sighed, and said, with a peculiar stare which did not seem to carry any
distance, but to stop short at a point in the air very near his face:

"Anybody can see at once you are one. You and the governor ought to
understand each other. He expects to see you tonight. The governor isn't
well, and we've got to think of getting away from here."

While saying these words he turned himself full towards Lena, but
without any marked expression. Leaning back with folded arms, the girl
stared before her as if she had been alone in the room. But under
that aspect of almost vacant unconcern the perils and emotion that had
entered into her life warmed her heart, exalted her mind with a sense of
an inconceivable intensity of existence.

"Really? Thinking of going away from here?" Heyst murmured.

"The best of friends must part," Ricardo pronounced slowly. "And, as
long as they part friends, there's no harm done. We two are used to be
on the move. You, I understand, prefer to stick in one place."

It was obvious that all this was being said merely for the sake of
talking, and that Ricardo's mind was concentrated on some purpose
unconnected with the words that were coming out of his mouth.

"I should like to know," Heyst asked with incisive politeness, "how you
have come to understand this or anything else about me? As far as I can
remember, I've made you no confidences."

Ricardo, gazing comfortably into space out of the back of his chair--for
some time all three had given up any pretence of eating--answered
abstractedly:

"Any fellow might have guessed it!" He sat up suddenly, and uncovered
all his teeth in a grin of extraordinary ferocity, which was belied