DOLORES ON THE LOOK-OUT
Captain Sarrasin when he was in the hotel always had breakfast in his
little sitting-room. A very modest breakfast it was, consisting
invariably of a cup of coffee and some dry toast with a radish. Of late,
when he emerged from his bedroom he always found a little china jar on
his breakfast-table with some fresh flowers in it. He thought this a
delightful attention at first, and assumed that it would drop after a
day or two, like other formal civilities of a hotel-keeper. But the days
went on and the flowers came, and Captain Sarrasin thought that at least
he ought to make it known that he received and appreciated them, and was
grateful.
So he took care to be in the breakfast-room one day while the waiter was
laying out the breakfast things, and crowning the edifice metaphorically
with the little china jar and its fresh flowers--roses this time.
Sarrasin knew enough to know that the deftest-handed waiter in the world
had never arranged that cluster of roses and moss and leaves.
'Now, look here, dear boy,' he asked of the waiter in his beaming
way--Sarrasin hardly ever addressed any personage of humbler rank
without some friendly and encouraging epithet, 'to whom am I indebted
for these delightful morning gifts of flowers?'
'To Miss Dolores--Miss Paulo,' the man said. He was a Swiss, and spoke
with a thick, Swiss accent.
'Miss Paulo--the daughter of the house?'
'Yes, sir; she arranges them herself every day.'
'Is that the tall and handsome young lady I sometimes see with Mr. Paulo
in his room?'
'Yes; that is she.'
'But I want to thank her for her great kindness. Will you take a card
from me, my dear fellow, and ask her if she will be good enough to see
me?'
'Willingly, sir; Miss Dolores has her own room on this floor--No. 25.
She is there every morning after she comes back from her early ride and
until luncheon time.'
'After she comes back from her ride?'
'Yes, sir; Miss Dolores rides in the Park every morning and afternoon.'
This news somewhat dashed the enthusiasm of Captain Sarrasin. He liked a
girl who rode, that was certain. Mrs. Sarrasin rode like that rarest of
creatures, except the mermaid, a female Centaur, and if he had had a
dozen daughters, they would all have been trained to ride, one better
than the other. The riding, therefore, was clearly in the favour of
Dolores, so far as Captain Sarrasin's estimate was concerned. But then
the idea of a hotel-keeper's daughter riding in the Row and giving
herself airs! He did not like that. 'When I was young,' he said, 'a girl
wasn't ashamed of her father's business, and did not try to put on the
ways of a class she did not belong to.' Still, he reminded himself that
he was growing old, and that the world was becoming affected--and that
girls now, of any order, were not like the girls in the dear old days
when Mrs. Sarrasin was young. And in any case the morning flowers were a
charming gift and a most delightful attention, and a gentleman must
offer his thanks for them to the most affected young woman in the world.
So he told the waiter that after breakfast he would send his card to
Miss Paulo's room, and ask her to allow him to call on her.
'Miss Paulo will see you, of course,' the man replied. 'Mr. Paulo is
generally very busy, and sees very few people, but Miss Paulo--she will
see everybody for him.'
'Everybody? What about, my good young man?'
'But, monsieur, about everything--about paying bills--and complaints of
gentlemen, and ladies who think they have not had value for their money,
and all that sort of thing--monsieur knows.'
'Then the young lady looks after the business of the hotel?'
'Oh, yes, monsieur--always.'
That piece of news was a relief to Captain Sarrasin. Miss Dolores went
up again high in his estimation, and he felt abashed at having wronged
her even by the misconception of a moment. He consumed his coffee and
his radish and dry toast, and he selected from the china jar a very
pretty moss rose, and put it in his gallant old buttonhole, and then he
rang for his friend the waiter, and sent his card to Miss Paulo. In a
moment the waiter brought back the intimation that Miss Paulo would be
delighted to see Captain Sarrasin at once.
Miss Paulo's door stood open, as if to convey the idea that it was an
office rather than a young lady's boudoir--a place of business and not a
drawing-room. It was a very pretty room, as Sarrasin saw at a glance
when he entered it with a grand and old-fashioned bow, such as men make
no more in these degenerate days. It was very quietly decorated with
delicate colours, and a few etchings and many flowers; and Dolores
herself came from behind her writing desk, smiling and blushing, to meet
her tall visitor. The old soldier scanned her as he would have scanned a
new recruit, and the result of his impressionist study was to his mind
highly satisfactory. He already liked the girl.
'My dear young lady,' he began, 'I have to introduce myself--Captain
Sarrasin. I have come to thank you.'
'No need to introduce yourself or to thank me,' the girl said, very
simply. 'I have wanted to know you this long time, Captain Sarrasin, and
I sent you flowers every morning, because I knew that sooner or later
you would come to see me. Now won't you sit down, please?'
'But may I not thank you for your flowers?'
'No, no, it is not worth while. And besides, I had an interested object.
I wanted to make your acquaintance and to talk to you.'
'I am so glad,' he said gravely. 'But I am afraid I am not the sort of
man young ladies generally care to talk to. I am a battered old soldier
who has been in many wars, as Burns says----'
'That is one reason. I believe you have been in South America?'
'Yes, I have been a great deal in South America.'
'In the Republic of Gloria?'
'Yes, I have been in the Republic of Gloria.'
'Do you know that the Dictator of Gloria is staying in this house?'
'My dear young lady, everyone knows _that_.'
'Are you on his side or against him?' Dolores asked bluntly.
'Dear young lady, you challenge me like a sentry.' And Captain Sarrasin
smiled benignly, feeling, however, a good deal puzzled.
'I have been told that you are against him,' the girl said; 'and now
that I see you I must say that I don't believe it.'
'Who told you that I was against him?' the stout old Paladin asked; 'and
why shouldn't I be against him if my conscience directed me that way?'
'Well, it was supposed that you might be against him. You are both
staying in this hotel, and, until the other day, you have never called
upon him or gone to see him, or even sent your card to him. That seemed
to my father a little strange. He talked of asking you frankly all about
it. I said I would ask you. And I am glad to have got you here, Captain
Sarrasin, to challenge you like a sentry.'
'Well, but now look here, my dear young lady--why should your father
care whether I was for the Dictator or against him?'
'Because if you were against him it might not be well that you were in
the same house,' Dolores answered with business-like promptitude and
straightforwardness, 'getting to know what people called on him, and how
long they stayed, and all that.'
'Playing the spy, in fact?'
'Such things have been done, Captain Sarrasin.'
'By gentlemen and soldiers, Miss Paulo?' and he looked sternly at her.
The unabashed damsel did not quail in the least.
'By persons calling themselves gentlemen and soldiers,' she answered
fearlessly. The old warrior smiled. He liked her courage and her
frankness. It was clear that she and her father were devoted friends of
the Dictator. It was clear that somebody had suspected him of being one
of the Dictator's political enemies. He took to Dolores.
'My good young lady,' he said, 'you seem to me a very true-hearted girl.
I don't know why, but that is the way in which I take your measure and
add you up.'
Dolores was a little amazed at first; but she saw that his eyes
expressed nothing save honest purpose, and she did not dream of being
offended by his kindly patronising words.
'You may add me up in any way you like,' she said. 'I am pretty good at
addition myself, and I think I shall come out that way in the end.'
'I know it,' he said, with a quite satisfied air, as if her own account
of herself had settled any lingering doubt he might possibly have had
upon his mind. 'Very well; now you say you can add up figures pretty
well--and, in fact, I know you do, because you help your father to keep
his books, now don't you?'
'Of course I do,' she answered promptly, 'and very proud of it I am that
I can assist him.'
'Quite right, my dear. Well, now, as you are so good in figuring up
things, I wonder could you figure _me_ up?'
There was something so comical in the question, and in the manner and
look of the man who propounded it, that Dolores could not keep from a
smile, and indeed could hardly prevent the smile from rippling into a
laugh. For Captain Sarrasin threw back his head, stiffened up his frame,
opened widely his grey eyes, compressed his lips, and in short put
himself on parade for examination.
'Figure me up,' he said, 'and be candid with it, dear girl. Say what I
come up to in your estimation.'
Dolores tried to take the whole situation seriously.
'Look into my eyes,' he said imperatively. 'Tell me if you see anything
dishonest or disloyal, or traitorous there?'
With her never-failing shrewd common sense, the girl thought it best to
play the play out. After all, a good deal depended on it, to her
thinking. She looked into his eyes. She saw there an almost childlike
sincerity of purpose. If truth did not lie in the well of those eyes,
then truth is not to be found in mortal orbs at all. But the quick and
clever Dolores did fancy that she saw flashing now and then beneath the
surface of those eyes some gleams of fitfulness, restlessness--some
light that the world calls eccentric, some light which your sound and
practical man would think of as only meant to lead astray--to lead
astray, that is, from substantial dividends and real property, and lucky
strokes on the Stock Exchange, and peerages and baronetcies and other
good things. There was a strong dash of the poetic about Dolores, for
all her shrewd nature and her practical bringing-up, and her conflicts
over hotel bills; and somehow, she could not tell why, she found that as
she looked into the eyes of Captain Sarrasin her own suddenly began to
get dimmed with tears.
'Well, dear girl,' he asked, 'have you figured me up, and can you trust
me?'
'I have figured you up,' she said warmly, 'and I can trust you;' and
with an impulse she put her hand into his.
'Trust me anywhere--everywhere?'
'Anywhere--everywhere!' she murmured passionately.
'All right,' he said, cheerfully. 'I have the fullest faith in you, and
now that you have full faith in me we can come straight at things. I
want you to know my wife. She would be very fond of you, I am quite
sure. But, now, for the moment: You were wondering why I am staying in
this hotel?'
'I was,' she said, with some hesitancy, 'because I didn't know you----'
'And because you were interested in the Dictator of Gloria?'
She felt herself blushing slightly; but his face was perfectly serious
and serene. He was evidently regarding her only in the light of a
political partisan. She felt ashamed of her reddening cheeks.
'Yes; I am greatly interested in him,' she answered quite proudly; 'so
is my father.'
'Of course he is, and of course you are--and, of course, so is every
Englishman and Englishwoman who has the slightest care for the future
fortunes of Gloria--which may be one of the best homes in the world for
some of our poor people from this stifling country, if only a man like
Ericson can be left to manage it. Well, well, I am wandering off into
matters which you young women can't be expected to understand, or to
care anything about.'
'But I do understand them--and I do care a great deal about them,'
Dolores said indignantly. 'My father understands all about Gloria--and
he has told me.'
'I am glad to hear it,' Sarrasin said gravely. 'Well, now, to come
back----' and he paused.
'Yes, yes,' she said eagerly, 'to come back?'
'I am staying in this hotel for a particular purpose. I want to look
after the Dictator. That's the whole story. My wife and I have arranged
it all.'
'You want to look after him? Is he in danger?' The girl was turning
quite pale.
'Danger? Well, it is hard to say where real danger is. I find, as a
rule, that threatened men live long, and that there isn't much real
danger where danger is talked about beforehand, but I never act upon
that principle in life. I am never governed in my policy by the fact
that the cry of wolf has been often raised--I look out for the wolf all
the same.'
'Has he enemies?'
'Has he enemies? Why, I wonder at a girl of your knowledge and talent
asking a question like that! Is there a scoundrel in Gloria who is not
his enemy? Is there a man who has succeeded in getting any sinecure
office from the State who doesn't know that the moment Ericson comes
back to Gloria out he goes, neck and crop? Is there a corrupt judge in
Gloria who wouldn't, if he could, sentence Ericson to be shot the moment
he landed on the coast of Gloria? Is there a perjured professional
informer who doesn't hate the very name of Ericson? Is there a cowardly
blackguard in the army, who has got promotion because the general liked
his pretty wife--oh, well, I mean because the general happened to be
some relative of his wife--is there any fellow of this kind who doesn't
hate Ericson and dread his coming back to Gloria?'
'No, I suppose not,' Dolores sadly answered. Paulo's Hotel was like
other hotels, a gossiping place, and it is to be feared that Dolores
understood better than Captain Sarrasin supposed, the hasty and
speedily-qualified allusion to the General and the pretty wife.
'Well, you see,' Sarrasin summed up, 'I happen to have been in Gloria,
and know something of what is going on there. I studied the place a
little bit before Ericson had left, and I got to know some people. I am
what would have been called in other days a soldier of fortune, dear
girl, although, Heaven knows! I never made much fortune by my
soldiering--you should just ask my wife! But anyhow, you know, when I
have been in a foreign country where things are disturbed people send to
me and offer me jobs, don't you see? So in that way I found that the
powers that be in Gloria at present'--Sarrasin was fond of good old
phrases like 'the powers that be'--'the powers that be in Gloria have a
terrible dread of Ericson's coming back. I know a lot about it. I can
tell you they follow everything that is going on here. They know
perfectly well how thick he is with Sir Rupert Langley, the Foreign
Secretary, and they fancy that means the support of the English
Government in any attempt to return to Gloria. Of course, we know it
means nothing of the kind, you and I.'
'Of course, of course,' Dolores said. She did not know in the least
whether it did or did not mean the support of the English Government;
for her own part, she would have been rather inclined to believe that it
did. But Captain Sarrasin evidently wanted an answer, and she hastened
to give him the answer which he evidently wanted.
'But _they_ never can understand that,' he added. 'The moment a man
dines with a Secretary of State in London they get it into their absurd
heads that that means the pledging of the whole Army, Navy, and Reserve
Forces of England to any particular cause which the man invited to
dinner may be supposed to represent. Here, in nine cases out of ten, the
man invited to dinner does not exchange one confidential word with the
Secretary of State, and the day but one after the dinner the Secretary
of State has forgotten his very existence.'
'Oh, but is that really so?' Dolores asked, in a somewhat aggrieved tone
of voice. She was disposed to resent the idea of any Secretary of State
so soon forgetting the existence of the Dictator.
'Not in this case, dear girl--not in this case certainly. Sir Rupert and
Ericson are great friends; and they say Ericson is going to marry Sir
Rupert's daughter.'
'Oh, do they?' Dolores asked earnestly.
'Yes, they do; and the Gloria folk have heard of it already, I can tell
you; and in their stupid outsider sort of way they go on as if their
little twopenny-halfpenny Republic were being made an occasion for great
state alliances on the part of England.'
'What is she like?' Dolores murmured faintly. 'Is she very pretty? Is
she young?'
'I am told so,' Sarrasin answered vaguely. To him the youth or beauty of
Sir Rupert's daughter was matter of the slightest consideration.
'Told what?' Dolores asked somewhat sharply. 'That she is young and
pretty, or that she isn't?'
'Oh, that she is young and very pretty, quite a beauty they tell me; but
you know, my dear, that with Royal Princesses and very rich girls a
little beauty goes a long way.'
'It wouldn't with him,' Dolores answered emphatically.
'With whom?' Captain Sarrasin asked blankly, and Dolores saw that she
had all unwittingly put herself in an awkward position. 'I meant,' she
tried to explain, 'that I don't think his Excellency would be governed
much by a young woman's money.'
'But, my dear girl, where are we now? Did I ever say he would be?'
'Oh, no,' she replied meekly, and anxious to get back to the point of
the conversation. 'Then you think, Captain Sarrasin, that his Excellency
has enemies here in London--enemies from Gloria, I mean.'
'I shouldn't wonder in the least if he had,' Sarrasin replied
cautiously. 'I know there are some queer chaps from Gloria about in
London now. So we come to the point, dear girl, and now I answer the
question we started with. That's why I am staying in this hotel.'
Dolores drew a deep breath.
'I knew it from the first,' Dolores said. 'I was sure you had come to
watch over him.'
'That's exactly why I am here. Some of them, perhaps, will only know me
by name as a soldier of fortune, and may think that they could manage to
humbug me and get me over to their side. So they'll probably come to me
and try to talk me over, don't you see? They'll try to make me believe
that Ericson was a tyrant and a despot, don't you know; and that I ought
to go back to Gloria and help the Republic to resist the oppressor, and
so get me out of the way and leave the coast clear to them--see? Others
of them will know pretty well that where I am on watch and ward, I am
the right man in the right place, and that it isn't of much use their
trying on any of their little assassination dodges here--don't you see?'
Dolores was profoundly touched by the simple vanity and the sterling
heroism of this Christian soldier--for she could not account him any
less. She believed in him with the fullest faith.
'Does his Excellency know of this?' she asked.
'Know of what, my dear girl?'
'About these plots?' she asked impatiently.
'I don't suppose he thinks about them.'
'All the more reason why we should,' Dolores said emphatically.
'Of course. There are lots of foreign fellows always staying here,'
Sarrasin said, more in the tone of one who asks a question than in that
of one who makes an assertion.
'Yes--yes--of course,' Dolores answered.
'I wonder, now, if you would be able to pick out a South American
foreigner from the ordinary Spanish or Italian foreigner?'
'Oh, yes--I _think_ so,' Dolores answered after a second or two of
consideration. 'Moustache more curled--nose more thick--general air of
swagger.'
'Yes--you haven't hit it off badly at all. Well, keep a look-out for any
such, and give me the straight tip as soon as you can--and keep your
eyes and your senses well about you.'
'You may trust me to do _that_,' the girl said cheerily.
'Yes, I know we can. Now, how about your father?'
'I think it will be better not to bring father into this at all,'
Dolores answered very promptly.
'No, dear girl? Now, why not?'
'Well, perhaps it would seem to him wrong not to let out the whole thing
at once to the authorities, or not to refuse to receive any suspicious
persons into the house at all, and that isn't, by any means, what you
and I are wanting just now, Captain Sarrasin!'
'Why, certainly not,' the old soldier said, with a beaming smile. 'What
a clever girl you are! Of course, it isn't what we want; we want the
very reverse; we want to get them in here and find out all about them!
Oh, I can see that we shall be right good pals, you and I, dear girl,
and you must come and see my wife. She will appreciate you, and she is
the most wonderful woman in the world.'