pretty sure that mine was all a false alarm.' So she sat
beside Mrs. Sarrasin, who looked up at once with a beaming smile.

'Mrs. Sarrasin,' Dolores said in a low, quiet voice, 'should you think
it odd if a man who knows Spanish were to pretend that he did not
understand a word of it?'

'That would depend a good deal on who the man was, my dear, and where he
was, and what he was doing. I should not be surprised if a Carlist spy,
for instance, captured some years ago by the Royalists, were to pretend
that he did not speak Spanish, and try to pass off for a commercial
traveller from Bordeaux.'

'Yes. But where there was no war--and no capture--and no need of
concealing one's acquirements----'

Mrs. Sarrasin saw that something was really disturbing the girl. She
became wonderfully composed and gentle. She thought a moment, and then
said:

'I heard Mr. Soame Rivers say to-night that he didn't understand
Spanish. Was that only his modesty--and does he understand it?'

'Oh, Mrs. Sarrasin, I wasn't thinking about him. What does it matter
whether he understands it or not?'

'Nothing whatever, I should say. So it was not he?'

'Oh, no, indeed.'

'Then whom were you thinking about?'

Dolores dropped her voice to its lowest tone and whispered:

'Professor Flick!' Then she glanced in some alarm towards Helena,
fearing lest Miss Langley might have heard. The good girl's heart was
set on sparing Miss Langley any distress of mind which could possibly be
avoided. Dolores saw in a moment how her words had impressed Mrs.
Sarrasin. Mrs. Sarrasin turned on Dolores a face of the deepest
interest. But she had all the composure of her many campaigns.

'This is a very different business,' she said, 'from Mr. Rivers and his
profession of ignorance. Do you really mean to say, Miss Paulo--you are
a clever girl, I know, with sound nerve and good judgment--do you mean
to say that Professor Flick really does know Spanish, although he says
he does not understand it?'

'I spoke to him a few words of Spanish, and, as it so happened, I looked
up at him, and quite accidentally caught his eye under his big
spectacles, and I saw that he understood me. Mrs. Sarrasin, I _could_
not be mistaken--I _know_ he understood me. And then he recovered
himself, and said that he knew nothing of Spanish. Why, there was so
much of the Spanish in his accent--it isn't _very_ much, of course--that
I assumed at first that he must have come from New Orleans or