"No, Yerba," he said, eagerly, taking her unresisting but indifferent hand, "not all; but all that I must say, all that I have the right to say, all that you, Yerba, would permit me to tell you NOW. But let me hope that the day is not far distant when I can tell you ALL, when you will understand that this silence has been the hardest sacrifice of the man who now speaks to you."
"And yet not unworthy of a rising politician," she added, quickly withdrawing her hand. "I agree," she went on, looking towards the door, yet without appearing to avoid his eager eyes, "and when I have settled upon 'a local habitation and a name' we shall renew this interesting conversation. Until then, as my fourth official guardian used to say—he was a lawyer, Mr. Hathaway, like yourself—when he was winding up his conjectures on the subject—all that has passed is to be considered 'without prejudice.'"
"But Yerba"—began Paul, bitterly.
She slightly raised her hand as if to check him with a warning gesture. "Yes, dear," she said suddenly, lifting her musical voice, with a mischievous side-glance at Paul, as if to indicate her conception of the irony of a possible application, "this way. Here we are waiting for you." Her listening ear had detected Milly's step in the passage, and in another moment that cheerful young woman discreetly stopped on the threshold of the room, with every expression of apologetic indiscretion in her face.
"We have finished our talk, and Mr. Hathaway has been so concerned about my having no real name that he has been promising me everything, but his own, for a suitable one. Haven't you, Mr. Hathaway?" She rose slowly and, going over to Milly, put her arm around her waist and stood for one instant gazing at him between the curtains of the doorway. "Good night. My very proper chaperon is dreadfully shocked at this midnight interview, and is taking me away. Only think of it, Milly; he actually proposed to me to walk in the garden with him! Good night, or, as my ancestors—don't forget, MY ANCESTORS—used to say: 'Buena noche—hasta manana!'" She lingered over the Spanish syllables with an imitation of Dona Anna's lisp, and with another smile, but more faint and more ghostlike than before; vanished with her companion.
At eight o'clock the next morning Paul was standing beside his portmanteau on the veranda.
"But this is a sudden resolution of yours, Hathaway," said Mr. Woods. "Can you not possibly wait for the next train? The girls will be down then, and you can breakfast comfortably."
"I have much to do—more than I imagined—in San Francisco before I return," said Paul, quickly. "You must make my excuses to them and to your wife."
"I hope," said Woods, with an uneasy laugh, "you have had no more words with Don Caesar, or he with you?"
"No," said Paul, with a reassuring smile, "nothing more, I assure you."