"Mr. Gore? Anything but!" And Sarella laughed.
Don Joaquin waited for more, and got it.
"Nobody could interest him more," she declared with conviction, shaking her head with pregnant meaning.
"Ah! So I have thought sometimes," Don Joaquin agreed.
"Anyone could see it. Except Mariquita," she proceeded.
"Mariquita not?"
"Not she! Mariquita's eyes look so high she cannot see you and me, nor Mr. Gore."
After "you and me" Sarella had made an infinitesimal pause, and had darted an instantaneous glance at Don Joaquin. He had scarcely time to catch the glance before it was averted and Sarella added, "or Mr. Gore."
Don Joaquin did not think it objectionable in his daughter "not to see" "you and me"—himself and Sarella—too hastily. But it would ultimately be advisable that she should see what was coming before it actually came. That would save telling. Neither would he have been pleased if she had quickly scented a lover in Mr. Gore; that would have offended her father's sense of dignity. Nor would it have been advisable for her to suspect a lover in Mr. Gore at any time, if Mr. Gore were not intending to be one. Once he was really desirous of being one, and her father approved, she might as well awake to it.
"It is true," he said, "Mariquita has not those ideas."