again, if this Captain Sarrasin has been out in Gloria, and if he is on
the right side, why didn't he call on his Excellency and prove himself a
friend?'

'Dear, he has called on him.'

'Yesterday, yes; but not before.'

'Yes, but don't you see, dear,' Dolores said eagerly, 'that would cut
both ways. You think that he is not a friend, but an enemy?'

'I begin to fear so, Dolores.'

'But, don't you see, an enemy might be for that very reason all the more
anxious to pass himself off as a friend?'

'Yes, there's something in that, little girl; there's something in that,
to be sure. But now you just hear me out before you let your mind come
to any conclusion one way or the other.'

'I'll hear you out,' said Dolores; 'you need not be afraid about that.'

Dolores knew her father to be a cool-headed and sensible man; but still,
even that fact would hardly in itself account for the interest she took
in suspicions which appeared to have only the slightest possible
foundation. She was evidently listening with breathless anxiety.

'Now, of course, I never allow revolutionary plotting in this house,'
Paulo went on to say. 'I may have _my_ sympathies and you may have
_your_ sympathies, and so on; but business is business, and we can't
have any plans of campaign carried on in Paulo's Hotel. Kings are as
good customers to me when they're on a throne as when they're off
it--better maybe.'

'Yes, dear, I know all about that.'

'Still, one must assume that a man like his Excellency will see his
friends in private, in his own rooms, and talk over things. I don't
suppose he and Mr. Hamilton are talking about nothing but the play and
the opera and Hurlingham, and all that.'

'No, no, of course not. Well?'

'It would get out that they were planning a return to Gloria. Now I
know--and I dare say you know--that a return to Gloria by his Excellency
would mean the stopping of the supplies to hundreds of rascals there,
who are living on public plunder, and who are always living on it as
long as he is not there, and who never will be allowed to live upon it
as long as he is there--don't you see?'

'Oh yes, dear; I see very plainly.'

'It's all true what I say, isn't it?'

'Quite true--quite--quite true.'

'Well, now, I dare say you begin to take my idea. You know how little
that gang of scoundrels care about the life of any man.'

'Oh, father, please don't!' She had her riding-whip in her hand, and she
made a quick movemen