'But it is generous of these people here. They think that Gloria is going to be annexed—and they know that you have been Gloria's patriot and Dictator, and therefore they applaud you. Oh, come now, you must be grateful—? you really must—and you must own that our English people can be sympathetic.'
'I will admit all you wish,' he said.
Helena drew back in the box, and instinctively leaned towards her father, who was standing behind, and who seldom remained long in a box at a theatre, because he generally had so many people to see in other boxes between the acts. She was vexed because Ericson would persist in treating her as a child. She did not want him to admit anything merely because she wished him to admit it. She wanted to be argued with, like a rational human being—like a man.
'What a handsome dark woman that is in the box just opposite to us,' she said, addressing her words rather to Sir Rupert than to the Dictator. 'She is very handsome. I don't know her—I wonder who she is?'
'I seem to know her face,' Sir Rupert said, 'but I can't just at the moment put a name to it.'
'I know her face well and I can put a name to it,' the Dictator said. 'It is Miss Paulo—Dolores Paulo—daughter of the owner of Paulo's Hotel, where I am staying.'
'Oh, yes, of course,' Sir Rupert struck in; 'I have seen her and spoken with her. She is quite lady-like, and I am told well educated and clever too.'
'She is very well educated and very clever,' Ericson said 'and as well-bred a woman as you could find anywhere.'
'Does she go into society at all? I suppose not,' Helena said coldly. She felt a little spiteful—not against Dolores; at least, not against Dolores on Dolores' own account—but against her as having been praised by Ericson. She thought it hard that Ericson should first have treated her, Helena, as a child with whom one would agree, no matter what she said, and immediately after launch out into praise of the culture and cleverness of Miss Paulo.
'I don't fancy she cares much about getting into society,' Ericson replied. 'One of the things I admire most about Paulo and his daughter is that they seem to make their own life and their own work enough for them, and don't appear to care to get to be anything they are not.'