It was an hour later that John returned, flushed by the wind and something that had nothing to do with the elements. Rodrigo was still in the chair, trying to read.
"You didn't mind my running off with Miss Van Zile?" John asked, with a strange indication in his voice that he didn't care whether his friend minded or not. He was excited, eager to confide.
"Not at all," returned Rodrigo, "but John——"
John had lighted a cigarette and was walking around the room. "She's wonderful, isn't she, Rodrigo?" he said suddenly. "A very remarkable and very beautiful girl. She's never been to New York before, she says. She's frightened with the city, but eager to see the sights. I've made several engagements with her to show them to her."
Rodrigo was silent.
John enthused on. "Rodrigo, if I fell in love, it would be with that kind of a girl—frank, unspoiled, sweet and lovely. She has something Eastern women utterly lack. They are all so sophisticated and blasé. You could never imagine such a woman marrying me for my money, for instance."
Rodrigo wondered if he was a coward. He ought to warn John that he was playing with dynamite, that this girl was everything that his friend thought she was not. But John was so utterly absorbed in her. And he, Rodrigo, had promised Henry Dorning to show his son something of worldly women. Here was John's opportunity to secure an education. Probably with no serious results. Elise must be playing with Dorning, and it couldn't last. She could have no serious intentions toward John. He was exactly the opposite of the type of man that interested her. Rodrigo, with no sense of self-flattery, even suspected shrewdly that she had played up to John with the object of making John's room-mate jealous.
And so, he decided, for the time being, that he would keep silent.