“The difference you mention is at least to my advantage,” he said. “You may remember that I was a ragged outcast then.”
“And now, I think, you are on the way to prosperity. You have made a good friend—Mr. Appleby.”
Appleby started. He had felt it incumbent on him to give Harding an outline of his story, and had, at the latter’s recommendation, applied for a cedilla personale, or certificate of nationality, which it was desirable for aliens to possess just then in his own name; but it had not occurred to him that Harding might be communicative. Still, a curious friendship or camaraderie, of a kind that would have been scarcely possible in England, had sprung up between him and the girl, and he saw that she expected something of him.
“I hope I have made two,” he said. “Indeed, I fancy I owe the improvement in my affairs to the second one.”
“Wouldn’t it be more flattering to consider how much was due to your own abilities?”
Appleby laughed. “I was never considered clever, but I am not quite a fool. There is, one surmises, no scarcity of talented young Americans, and I fancy a good many of them would be glad to serve Cyrus Harding. Still, I don’t know anybody I would sooner take a kindness from.”
“You will have to deserve it, and that implies a question. The Sin Verguenza may come back again?”
“You want the question answered?” said Appleby.
“Yes,” said Nettie. “There are disadvantages in a divided allegiance.”
“Well,” said Appleby slowly, “I hope the decision I think you are alluding to will never be forced on me, for I have had sufficient of the Sin Verguenza. While I take Cyrus Harding’s money I accept the obligation that goes with it; but when I was starving, and did not know where I would be safe from the cazadores, the Sin Verguenza fed me, and I think I owe them something.”