Carroll!"

"Always?" He colored like a boy.

"Why not?" He was confusedly trying to look through her brown lashes;
she was parrying him with the steel of her father's glance. "Come!
Well! Captain Carroll! It was not to tell me your name--that I knew
already was pretty--Car-roll!" she murmured again, caressing him with
her lashes; "it was not for this that you asked me to meet you face to
face in this--cold"--she made a movement of drawing her lace over her
shoulders--"cold daylight. That belonged to the lights and the dance
and the music of last night. It is not for this you expect me to leave
my guests, to run away from Monsieur Garnier, who pays compliments, but
whose name is not pretty--from Mr. Raymond, who talks OF me when he
can't talk TO me. They will say, This Captain Carroll could say all
that before them."

"But if they knew," said the young officer, drawing closer to her with
a paling face but brightening eyes, "if they knew I had anything else
to say, Miss Saltonstall--something--pardon me--did I hurt your
hand?--something for HER alone--is there one of them that would have
the right to object? Do not think me foolish, Miss Saltonstall--but--I
beg--I implore you to tell me before I say more."

"Who would have a right?" said Maruja, withdrawing her hand but not her
dangerous eyes. "Who would dare forbid you talking to me of my sister?
I have told you that Amita is free--as we all are."

Captain Carroll fell back a few steps and gazed at her with a troubled
face. "It is possible that you have misunderstood, Miss Saltonstall?"
he faltered. "Do you still think it is Amita that I"--he stopped and
added passionately, "Do you remember what I told you?--have you
forgotten last night?"

"Last night was--last night!" said Maruja, slightly lifting her
shoulders. "One makes love at night--one marries in daylight. In the
music, in the flowers, in the moonlight, one says everything; in the
morning one has breakfast--when one is not asked to have councils of
war with captains and commandantes. You would speak of my sister,
Captain Car-roll--go on. Dona Amita Carroll sounds very, very pretty.
I shall not object." She held out both her hands to him, threw her
head back, and smiled.

He seized her hands passionately. "No, no! you shall hear me--you
shall understand me. I love YOU, Maruja--you, and you alone. God
knows I can not help it--God knows I would not help it if I could. Hear
me. I will be