Just before the train pulled out John Stuart Webster took Dolores's hand. “Good-bye, Seeress,” he said very soberly. “The trail forks here for the first time—possibly the last, although I'll try to be on hand to make good on my promise to present you to your brother the day he occupies the palace. However, if I shouldn't be in town that day, just go up and introduce yourself to him. It's been wonderful to have met you and known you, even for such a brief period. I shall never forget you and the remarkable twenty-four hours just passed.”
“I shall not soon forget them myself, Caliph—nor you,” she added. “Haven't you been a busy little cup of tea, Caliph! Within twenty-four hours after landing, you have changed your mind three times, lost the best job in the world, had your fortune told, been marked for slaughter, acquired a new-found friend and commenced actively and with extraordinarily good results the work of reforming him, soused a gentleman in the fountain, spurned another with the tip of your boot, rode with me around the Malecon and listened to the band concert, bundled poor Billy off to San Miguel de Padua, received a challenge to fight a duel, accepted it, had it rejected, engaged in a street fight and shot a man through the hand, discovered my brother presumed to be dead, and received a reprieve from your enemies, while they perfect new plans for destroying you. Really, you are quite a caliph.”
“Oh, there's a dash of speed in the old horse yet, Miss Ruey,” he assured her laughingly. “Now listen: don't tell anybody about your brother, and don't tell Billy about my adventures since he left for San Miguel de Padua.”
“But I'm not liable to see Billy——”
“Yes, you are—extremely liable. I'm going to send him back to you as soon as I can spare him, because I know you'll be lonesome and bored to death in this lonesome town, and Bill is bully good company. And I don't want you to tell him about the mess I'm in, because it would only worry him; he can't aid me, and the knowledge that I was in any danger, real or fancied, would be sufficient to cause him to rebel against my plans for his honeym—for his vacation. He'd insist on sticking around to protect me.” He looked down at her little hand where it rested in his, so big and brown and hard; with his free hand be patted her hand paternally. “Good-bye, Seeress,” he said again; and turning to the steps, he leaped aboard just as the train started to move out of the station.
“Go—good-bye—Caliph,” she called mournfully. Then to herself: “Bless his heart, he did remember I'd be terribly lonely, after all. He isn't a bit queer, but oh, dear, he is so exasperating. I could bump his kind old head against a wall!” She turned her back on the train, fearful that from where he clung on the steps he could, even at that distance, see the sudden rush of tears that blinded her. However, Don Juan Cafe-téro, with his rubicund nose to the window of the last coach, did see them—saw her grope toward the carriage waiting to take her back to the hotel.
“Why, shure, the poor darlint's cryin',” he reflected. “Be the Great Gun an Athlone! Shure I t'ought all along 'twas Billy Geary she had her eye on—God love him! An' be the same token, didn't she tell me I was to shtay sober an' take care av Masther Webster? Hah-hah-a-a-a! Well! I'll say nothin' an' I'll be neuthral, but—but—but——”
From which it may be inferred that romance was not yet burned out of Don Juan's Gaelic soul. He would be “neuthral,” but—but—but—he reserved the right to butt in!