"Ah! Then there's something improper in the matter?"
Askew flushed through his bronzed skin. "Not at all," he said in a brusque tone. "Señorita Fajardo is all that is good and holy and pure."
"What bread and butter!" thought Leah, wondering if Jim had stumbled upon a convent. But she was too wise to quote Byron to this young man, who apparently was simple enough to regard love as something sacred.
"Fajardo," she repeated. "A Spanish name."
"And a Spanish lady," he said, gloomily. "Lola Fajardo, of the Estancia, San Jago, near Rosario."
"I thought you said of Lima?"
"No; I met her there. She is in the habit of stopping at Lima with her aunt. But her true home is at Rosario, in the Santa Fe province of the Argentine republic. I wonder if Berring brought her to England. She was madly in love with him."
"She must have been, to marry him."
"Oh, Berring's a good-looking chap, and not bad," said Askew, with the innate chivalry of a man towards a successful rival. "I suppose they did marry."
"Oh! Then you are not certain?"