"You say she's young, and PRETTY, and—RICH?" Leslie was incredulous.
"Y-yes! All of that."
"Um-m! Doctor Alvarado must mix a good cocktail."
"Why?"
"Because you're drunk and delirious. They don't come that way, my boy.
When they're rich they're old and ugly."
"I tell you this girl is young and—stunning."
"Of course she is," Branch agreed, soothingly. "Now go to sleep and don't think any more about her, there's a good boy! Everything will be all right in the morning. Perhaps it never happened; perhaps you didn't meet any woman at all." The speaker yawned and turned over.
"Don't be an ass," Johnnie cried, impatiently. "What are we going to do with a woman on our hands?"
"WE? Don't divide her with me. What are YOU going to do? The truth is plain, this Miss Evans is in love with you and you don't know it. She sees in you her soul mate. Well, if you don't want her, I want her. I'll eat her medicine. I'll even—marry the poor old soul, if she's rich."
O'Reilly arose early the next morning and hurried down to the office of the Junta, hoping that he could convince Mr. Enriquez of the folly of allowing Norine Evans to have her way. By the light of day Miss Evans's project seemed more hare-brained than ever, and he suspected that Enriquez had acquiesced in it only because of a natural inability to refuse anything to a pretty woman—that was typically Cuban. But his respect for Miss Evans's energy and initiative deepened when, on arriving at 56 New Street, he discovered that she had forestalled him and was even then closeted with the man he had come to see. Johnnie waited uneasily; he was dismayed when the girl finally appeared, with Enriquez in tow, for the man's face was radiant.