'Oh!' The girl shuddered, and again the riding-whip flashed.
'But it may not be quite that, you know, little girl; there are shabby tricks to be done short of that—there's spying and eavesdropping, to find out, in advance, all he is going to do, and to thwart it——'
'Yes, yes, there might be that,' Dolores said, in a tone of relief—the tone of one who, still fearing for the worst, is glad to be reminded that there may, after all, be something not so bad as the very worst.
'I don't want his Excellency spied on in Paulo's Hotel,' Mr. Paulo proudly said. 'It has not been the way of this hotel, and I do not mean that it ever should be the way.'
'Not likely,' Dolores said, with a scornful toss of her head. 'The idea, indeed, of Paulo's Hotel being a resort of mouchards and spies, to find out the secrets of illustrious exiles who were sheltered as guests!'
'Well, that's what I say. Now I have my suspicions of this Captain Sarrasin. I don't know what he wants here, and why, if he is on the side of his Excellency, he don't boldly attend him every day.'
'I think you are wrong about him, dear,' Dolores quietly said. 'You may be right enough in your general suspicions and alarms and all that, and I dare say you are quite right; but I am sure you are wrong about him. Anyhow, you keep a sharp look-out everywhere else, and leave me to find out all about him.'
'Little girl, how can you find out all about him?'
'Leave that to me. I'll talk to him, and I'll make him talk to me. I never saw a man yet whose character I couldn't read like a printed book after I have had a little direct and confidential talk with him.' Miss Dolores tossed her head with the air of one who would say, 'Ask me no questions about the secret of my art; enough for you to know that the art is there.'
'Well, some of you women have wonderful gifts, I know,' her father said, half admiringly, half reflectively, proud of his daughter, and wondering how women came to have such gifts.