Sarella shrugged her pretty shoulders and made no comment.
Mariquita took her father's intimation as an order and obeyed, though surprised that he should not, if he desired Mr. Gore to know of his approaching marriage, tell him himself. Possibly, she thought, her father was a little shy about such a subject.
Mr. Gore received her announcement quite coolly, without any manifestation of surprise. It had not, as Don Joaquin had hoped it might, the least effect of hurrying his own steps.
"Am I," he inquired, "supposed to show that I have been told?"
"Oh, I think so."
So that night when they were alone, after the others had gone to their rooms, Gore congratulated his host.
"Thank you! You see," said Don Joaquin, assuming a tone of pathos that sat most queerly on him, "as time goes on, I should be very lonely."
He shook his head sadly, and Gore endeavored to look duly sympathetic.
"Sarella," the older man proceeded, "could not stop here—if she were not my wife—after Mariquita had left us."
Gore, who perfectly understood Mariquita's father and his diplomacy, would not indulge him by asking if his daughter were, then, likely to leave him.