"I am r-ready, sir, when and where you will," said Briones, with a swaggering air but a shifting, furtive eye. "Open—a—the door."
"Pardon me. We will leave this room TOGETHER in an hour for the station. We will board the night express that will take us in three hours beyond the frontier, where we can each find a friend."
"But my affairs here—my sister—I must see her."
"You shall write a note to her at that table, saying that important business—a dispatch—has called you away, and we will leave it with the porter to be delivered IN THE MORNING. Or—I do not restrict you—you can say what you like, provided she don't get it until we have left."
"And you make of me a prisoner, sir?"
"No; a visitor, Don Caesar—a visitor whose conversation is so interesting that I am forced to detain him to hear more. You can pass the time pleasantly by finishing the story I was obliged to interrupt a moment ago. Do you know this mother of Miss Yerba, of whom you spoke?"
"That's m—my affair."
"That means you don't know her. If you did, you'd have had her within call. And, as she is the only person who is able to say that Miss Yerba is NOT an Arguello, you have been very remiss."
"Ah, bah! I am not one of your—a—lawyers."
"No; or you would know that, with no better evidence than you have, you might be sued for slander."