("How he loves her!" thought Sarella.)
("I doubt it has wrecked him a bit," thought Don Joaquin.)
CHAPTER XXX.
Mariquita awoke early to see Sarella entering her room, and it surprised her, for her cousin was not fond of leaving her bed betimes.
"Oh, I'm going back to bed again," Sarella explained. "We were up to all hours. Of course, your father made a rumpus."
Mariquita heard this with less surprise than concern. It really grieved her to displease him.
"He has very queer old-fashioned notions," Sarella remarked, settling herself comfortably on Mariquita's bed, "and thinks it's his business to arrange all your affairs for you. Besides, you know by this time that any plan he has been hatching he expects to hatch out, and not to help him seems to him most undutiful and shocking."
"But I can't help him in this plan of his," Mariquita pleaded unhappily.
"I suppose not. Well, he flared out, and I was glad you were in bed. Gore behaved very well. It's a thousand pities you can't like him."