"I shall be delighted," I said, cutting him short, but who on earth was Señora Balmaceda? The chaperone, I supposed, confound it!
The obliging young man led me through two or three very gorgeously furnished rooms and at last into a large apartment brilliantly lit from the roof, and with flowers everywhere. At one end was a little alcove.
"I have brought Sir Thomas, Señora," he said, looking about the room, but there was no one remotely resembling a Señora there. Nevertheless, directly he spoke, some one stepped out of the conservatory from behind a tropical shrub in a green tub, and came towards us.
It was Juanita, and she was alone. The secretary withdrew and I advanced to meet her.
"How do you do, Sir Thomas," she said in her beautiful, bell-like voice. "Father said you might be coming and I'm afraid he won't be in just yet. And it's so tiresome, poor Auntie has gone to bed with a bad headache."
"I'm very sorry, Miss Morse," I answered as we shook hands, "I must do what I can to take her place," and then I looked at her perfectly straight.
Yes, I dared to look into those marvelous limpid eyes and I know she saw the hunger in mine, for she took her hand away a little hurriedly.
"What a charming room! Is that a little conservatory over there? It must look out over the Green Park?"
"Yes, it does," she replied almost in a whisper.
"Then do let's sit there, Miss Morse."