ssist 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,' sh