e at any moment, either through her ignorance
or her unhappy pretension. In his intolerable position, he was equally
unable to contemplate her peril, accept her defense, or himself defend
her.

As if, with some feminine instinct, she had attributed his silence to
some jealousy of Don Caesar's attentions, she more than once turned
from the Spaniard to Paul with an assuring smile. In his anxiety, he
half accepted the rather humiliating suggestion, and managed to say to
her, in a lower tone:--

"On this last visit of your American guardian, one would think, you
need not already anticipate your Spanish relations."

He was thrilled with the mischievous yet faintly tender pleasure that
sparkled in her eyes as she said,--

"You forget it is my American guardian's FIRST visit, as well as his
last."

"And as your guardian," he went on, with half-veiled seriousness, "I
protest against your allowing your treasures, the property of the
Trust," he gazed directly into her beautiful eyes, "being handled and
commented upon by everybody."

When the ladies had left the table, he was, for a moment, relieved. But
only for a moment. Judge Baker drew his chair beside Paul's, and,
taking his cigar from his lips, said, with a perfunctory laugh:--

"I say, Hathaway, I pulled up just in time to save myself from making
an awful speech, just now, to your ward."

Paul looked at him with cold curiosity.

"Yes. Gad! Do you know WHO was my rival in that necklace transaction?"

"No," said Paul, with frigid carelessness.

"Why, Kate Howard! Fact, sir. She bought it right under my nose--and
overbid me, too."

Paul did not lose his self-possession. Thanks to the fact that Yerba
was not present, and that Don Caesar, who had overheard the speech,
moved forward with a suggestive and unpleasant smile, his agitation
congealed into a coldly placid fury.

"And I suppose," he returned, with perfect calmness, "that, after the
usual habit of this class of women, the necklace very soon found its
way back, through the pawnbroker, to the jeweler again. It's a common
fate."

"Yes, of course," said Judge Baker, cheerfully. "You're quite right.
That's undoubtedly the solution of it. But," with a laugh, "I had a
narrow escape from saying something--eh?"

"A very narrow escape from an apparently gratuitous insult," said Paul,
gravely, but fixing his eyes, now more luminous than ever with anger,
not on the speakers but on the face of Don Caesar