"You silly little sentimentalist!" she exclaimed, laughingly. "I should always have been your friend if you had not repelled my advances with such determination. There now"—moving the pillows into a more comfortable position—"we won't talk about it any more. You are weak and nervous. The first thing I know you will cry, then I shall cry, and then I shall never forgive you as long as I live for making my nose red. Did you ever read in a novel about how beautiful the heroine looks when she cries? That is the baldest kind of rot! I never saw a girl in my life who looked pretty when she cried. I am not presentable for hours afterward."
It was a charity in its way, this new friendship, for in spite of its odious treachery on one side, it kept Carlita from going mad in those first days, and later gave her courage to play the part which Stolliker had mapped out for her.
At the end of the fifth day Stolliker reached the City of Mexico. He telegraphed from there, but there was nothing beyond the statement of his arrival.
On the seventh Carlita was up and about again, very wan, very haggard, but still on the road to recovery.
She felt that there was no longer any time to be lost in carrying out Stolliker's injunctions; and so, when Leith Pierrepont's card was brought to her two days later, she arose and went wearily downstairs.
"How you have suffered!" Leith exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon her.
Her own burned fiercely, and her lips trembled so that she could find no words in which to answer him.
He pressed her hand in silence, and led her to the same chair she had occupied that day when Stolliker was in the conservatory.
"It is so good of you to receive me," he continued, after a painful pause. "In memory of our compact of friendship, I have called every day to ask after you.'"
Her heart gave a great passionate bound, a mad bound of anger, at his presumption, she told herself; but her tone was calm, even serene, as she replied to him: