zzled.

'I have been told that you are against him,' the girl said; 'and now
that I see you I must say that I don't believe it.'

'Who told you that I was against him?' the stout old Paladin asked; 'and
why shouldn't I be against him if my conscience directed me that way?'

'Well, it was supposed that you might be against him. You are both
staying in this hotel, and, until the other day, you have never called
upon him or gone to see him, or even sent your card to him. That seemed
to my father a little strange. He talked of asking you frankly all about
it. I said I would ask you. And I am glad to have got you here, Captain
Sarrasin, to challenge you like a sentry.'

'Well, but now look here, my dear young lady--why should your father
care whether I was for the Dictator or against him?'

'Because if you were against him it might not be well that you were in
the same house,' Dolores answered with business-like promptitude and
straightforwardness, 'getting to know what people called on him, and how
long they stayed, and all that.'

'Playing the spy, in fact?'

'Such things have been done, Captain Sarrasin.'

'By gentlemen and soldiers, Miss Paulo?' and he looked sternly at her.
The unabashed damsel did not quail in the least.

'By persons calling themselves gentlemen and soldiers,' she answered
fearlessly. The old warrior smiled. He liked her courage and her
frankness. It was clear that she and her father were devoted friends of
the Dictator. It was clear that somebody had suspected him of being one
of the Dictator's political enemies. He took to Dolores.

'My good young lady,' he said, 'you seem to me a very true-hearted girl.
I don't know why, but that is the way in which I take your measure and
add you up.'

Dolores was a little amazed at first; but she saw that his eyes
expressed nothing save honest purpose, and she did not dream of being
offended by his kindly patronising words.

'You may add me up in any way you like,' she said. 'I am pretty good at
addition myself, and I think I shall come out that way in the end.'

'I know it,' he said, with a quite satisfied air, as if her own account
of herself had settled any lingering doubt he might possibly have had
upon his mind. 'Very well; now you say you can add up figures pretty
well--and, in fact, I know you do, because you help your father to keep
his books, now don't you?'

'Of course I do,' she answered promptly, 'and very proud of it I am that
I can a