CHAPTER XII
DOLORES
Mr. Paulo was perplexed. And as Mr. Paulo was a cool-headed, clear-sighted man, perplexity was an unusual thing with him, and it annoyed him. The cause of his perplexity was connected almost entirely with the ex-Dictator of Gloria. Ericson had still kept his rooms in the hotel; he had said, and Hamilton agreed with him, that in remaining there they seemed more like birds of passage, more determined to regard return to Gloria as not merely a possible but a probable event, and an event in the near future. To take a house in London, the Dictator thought, and, of course, Hamilton thought with him, would be to admit the possibility of a lengthy sojourn in London, and that was a possibility which neither of the two men wished to entertain. 'It wouldn't look well in the papers,' Hamilton said, shaking his head solemnly. So they remained on at Paulo's, and Paulo kept the green and yellow flag of Gloria flying as if the guest beneath his roof were still a ruling potentate.
But it was not the stay of the Dictator that in any way perplexed Mr. Paulo. Paulo was honestly proud of the presence of Ericson in his house. Paulo's father was a Spaniard who had gone out to Gloria as a waiter in a café, and who had entered the service of a young Englishman in the Legation, and had followed him to England and married an English wife. Mr. Paulo—George Paulo—was the son of this international union. His father had been a 'gentleman's gentleman,' and Paulo followed his father's business and became a gentleman's gentleman too. George Paulo was almost entirely English in his nature, thanks to a strong-minded mother, who ruled the late Manuel Paulo with a kindly severity. The only thing Spanish about him was his face—smooth-shaven with small, black side whiskers—a face which might have seemed more appropriately placed in the bull rings of Madrid or Seville. George Paulo, in his turn, married an Englishwoman, a lady's-maid, with some economies and more ideas. They had determined, soon after their marriage, to make a start in life for themselves. They had kept a lodging-house in Sloane Street, which soon became popular with well-to-do young gentlemen, smart soldiers, and budding diplomatists, for both Paulo and his wife understood perfectly the art of making these young gentlemen comfortable.
Things went well with Paulo and his wife; their small economies were made into small investments; the investments, being judicious, prospered. A daring purchase of house property proved one stroke of success, and led to another. When he was fifty years of age Paulo was a rich man, and then he built Paulo's Hotel, and his fortune swelled yearly. He was a very happy man, for he adored his wife and he idolised his daughter, the handsome, stately, dark-eyed girl whom, for some sentimental reason, her mother had insisted upon calling Dolores. Dolores was, or at least seemed to be, that rarest creature among women—an unconscious beauty. She could pass a mirror without even a glance at it.
Dolores Paulo had everything she wanted. She was well taught; she knew several languages, including, first of all, that Spanish of which her father, for all his bull-fighter face, knew not a single syllable; she could play, and sing, and dance; and, above all things, she could ride. No one in the Park rode better than Miss Paulo; no one in the Park had better animals to ride. George Paulo was a judge of horseflesh, and he bought the best horses in London for Dolores; and when Dolores rode in the Row, as she did every morning, with a smart groom behind her, everyone looked in admiration at the handsome girl who was so perfectly mounted. The Paulos were a curious family. They had not the least desire to be above what George Paulo called their station in life. He and his wife were people of humble origin, who had honestly become rich; but they had not the least desire to force themselves upon a society which might have accepted them for their money, and laughed at them for their ambition. They lived in a suite of rooms in their own hotel, and they managed the hotel themselves. They gave all their time to it, and it took all their time, and they were proud of it. It was their business and their pleasure, and they worked for it with an artistic conscientiousness which was highly admirable. Dolores had inherited the sense and the business-like qualities of her parents, and she insisted on taking her part in the great work of keeping the hotel going. Paulo, proud of his hotel, was still prouder of the interest taken in it by his daughter.
Dolores came in from her ride one afternoon, and was hurrying to her room to change her dress, when she was met by her father in the public corridor.
'Dolores, my little girl'—he always called the splendidly? proportioned young woman 'my little girl'—'I'm puzzled. I don't mind telling you, in confidence, that I am extremely puzzled.'
'Have you told mother?'