“Oh, dear, no! THEY will come again,—it's THEIR business.”
The Senator meant it kindly. It was as near the perilous edge of a compliment as your average cultivated Boston man ever ventures, and Carmen picked it up, femininely, by its sentimental end. “And I suppose I shall not trouble you again?”
“I shall always be proud to place the portfolio at your disposal. Command me at any time,” said the Senator, with dignity.
“You are kind. You are good,” said Carmen, “and I—I'm but,—look you,—only a poor girl from California, that you know not.”
“Pardon me, I know your country well.” And indeed he could have told her the exact number of bushels of wheat to the acre in her own county of Monterey, its voting population, its political bias. Yet of the more important product before him, after the manner of book-read men, he knew nothing.
Carmen was astonished, but respectful. It transpired presently that she was not aware of the rapid growth of the silk worm in her own district, knew nothing of the Chinese question, and very little of the American mining laws. Upon these questions the Senator enlightened her fully. “Your name is historic, by the way,” he said pleasantly. “There was a Knight of Alcantara, a 'De Haro,' one of the emigrants with Las Casas.”
Carmen nodded her head quickly, “Yes; my great-great-great-g-r-e-a-t grandfather!”
The Senator stared.
“Oh, yes. I am the niece of Victor Castro, who married my father's sister.”
“The Victor Castro of the 'Blue Mass' mine?” asked the Senator abruptly.