Billy's face flamed at thought of the embarrassing trap his glib tongue had led him into. He cursed himself for a star-spangled jackass, and while he was engaged in this interesting pastime Dolores spoke again.
“And by the way, which is it? Miss Wilkins or Mrs.? You've called her both, and when I reminded you she was a Miss, you agreed with me, whereas she is nothing of the sort. She's a Mrs. Then you blurted out something about a Mother Jenks, and finally, Mr. Geary, it occurs to me that for a complete stranger you are unduly interested in my welfare. I'm not such a goose as to assimilate your weird tales of death from disease. I might have accepted the revolution, because I know it's the national outdoor sport down here, and I might have accepted the cholera, because it wouldn't surprise me; but when you so artlessly throw in bubonic plague and yellow fever for good measure, Mr. Geary, you tax my credulity. It occurs to me that if your friend John S. Webster can risk Buenaventura, I can also.”
“You—you know that old tarantula?” Billy gasped. “Why I—I came out to warn him off the grass, too.”
Dolores walked a step closer to Billy and eyed him disapprovingly. “I'm so sorry I can't believe that statement,” she replied. “With the exception of your tendency toward fiction, you're rather a presentable young man, too. It's really too bad, but it happens that I was standing by the companion-ladder when you came aboard and spoke to the purser; when you asked him if Mr. Webster was aboard, your face was alight with eagerness and anticipation, but when you had reason to believe he was not aboard, you looked so terribly disappointed I felt sorry for you.”
“Well, of course I would have been delighted to meet the old boy,” Billy began, but she interrupted him.
“Mr. Geary, you're about as reliable as a Los Angeles thermometer—and if you've ever lived in a town the main asset of which is climate, you know just how reliable you are. Now, let us understand each other, Mr. Geary: If you think I'm the kind of simple, trusting little country maid who would come within half a mile of the land of her birth and then run back home because somebody said 'Boo!' you are not nearly so intelligent as you look. I'm going ashore, if it's the last act of my life, and when I get there I'm going to interview the cable agent; then I'm going to call at the steamship office and scan the passenger list of the last three north-bound steamers, and if I do not find Henrietta Wilkins's name on one of those passenger lists I'm going up to Calle de Concordia Number Nineteen——”
“I surrender unconditionally,” groaned Billy. “I'm a liar from beginning to end. I overlooked my hand. I forgot that while you were born in this country and bred from several generations of Sobranteans, you were raised in the U. S. A. I beg of you to believe me, however, when I tell you that I only told you those whoppers because I was in honour bound to tell them. Personally, I don't want you to go away—at least, not until I'm ready to go away, too! Miss Ruey, my nose is in the dust. On my lying head there is a ton of ashes and a thousand running yards of sackcloth. There is a fever in my brain and a misery in my heart——”
“And contrition in your face,” she interrupted him laughingly. “You're forgiven, Mr. Geary—on one condition.”
“Name it,” he answered.
“Tell me everything from beginning to end.”