VIII. Los Yankis - Page 2

was unintentional, but the girl winced.

"Aren't you coming with us on the yacht?"

"Am I?" His handsome face lighted hopefully.

"Of course. Dad expects you to. What kind of people should we be to leave any friend behind, with matters as they are?"

"Ah, yes." The hope passed out of his face. "Dictates of humanity, and that sort of thing. I think, if you and Mr. Brewster--"

"Please don't be silly, Fitz," she pleaded. "You know it would make me most unhappy to leave you."

Rarely did the scion of Southern blood and breeding lose the self- control and reserve on which he prided himself, but he had been harassed by events to an unwonted strain of temper.

"Is it making you unhappy to leave any one else here?" he blurted out.

The challenge stirred the girl's spirit.

"No, indeed! I wouldn't care if I never saw any of them again. I'm tired of it all. I want to go home," she said, like a pathetic child.

"Oh, Miss Polly," he began, taking a step toward her, "if you'd only let me--"

She put up one little sunburned hand.

"Please, Fitz! I--I don't feel up to it to-day."

Humbly he subsided.

"I'd no right to ask you the question," he apologized. "It was kind of you to answer me at all."

"You're really a dear, Fitz," she said, smiling a little wanly. "Sometimes I wish--"

She did not finish her sentence, but wandered over to the window, and gazed out across the square. On the far side something quite out of the ordinary seemed to be going on.

"The legless beggar seems to have collected quite an audience," she remarked idly.

Her suitor joined her on the parlor balcony.

"Possibly he's starting a revolution. Any one can do it down here."

Vehement adjuration, in a high, strident voice, came floating across to them.

"Listen!" cried the girl. "He's speaking. English, isn't he?"

"It seems to be a mixture of English, French, and Spanish. Quite a polyglot the friend of your friend Perkins appears to be."

She turned steady eyes upon him.

"Mr. Perkins is not my friend."

"No?"

"I never want to see him, or to hear his name again."

"Ah, then you've found out about him?"

"Yes." She flushed. "Yes--at least--Yes," she concluded.

"He admitted it to you?"

"No, he lied about it."

"I think I shall go up and make a call on Mr. Perkins," said Carroll, with formidable quiet.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she answered wearily. "He'd only run