Her laugh rang as free and frank as a child’s.
“Interest? That’s true. But if you mean sentiment, Fitz, after once having looked into the depths of those absurd goggles, can you, could you think of sentiment and the beetle man in the same breath?”
“No, I couldn’t,” he confessed, relieved. “But, then, I never have been able to understand you, Miss Polly.”
“Therein lies my fatal charm,” she said saucily. “Now, to the beetle man, I’m a specimen. He understands as much as he wants to. Probably I shall never see him after to-day, anyway. He’s going to get a message through for us that will deliver us from this land of bondage.”
“He can’t do it—too soon for me,” declared Carroll. “And, Miss Polly, you don’t think the worse of me for having said behind his back what I’m just waiting to say to his face?”
“Not a bit,” said the girl warmly. “Only I know it’s nonsense.”
“I hope so,” said Carroll, quite honestly. “I would hate to think anything low-down of a man you’d call your friend.”
Carroll had learned more than he had told, but less than enough to give him what he considered proper evidence to lay before Polly’s father. After some deliberation as to the point of honor involved, he decided to go to Raimonda, who, alone in Caracuña City, seemed to be on personal terms with the hermit. He found the young man in his office. With entire frankness, Carroll stated his errand and the reason for it. The Caracuñan heard him with grave courtesy.
“And now, señor,” concluded the American, “here’s my question, and it’s for you to determine whether, under the circumstances, you are justified in giving me an answer. Is there a woman living in Mr. Perkins’s quinta on the mountains?”
“I cannot answer that question,” said the other, after some deliberation.