She smiled--almost laughed.
"I? I am only a help in the Plaza--I take him his food--"
"Take him his food!" Sam Gwent growled out something like an oath--"What! Can't he come and get it for himself? Is he treated like a bear in a cage or a baby in a cradle?"
Manella gazed at him with reproachful soft eyes.
"Oh, you are rough!" she said--"He pays for whatever little trouble he gives. Indeed it is no trouble! He lives very simply--only on new milk and bread. I expect his health will not stand anything else--though truly he does not look ill--"
Gwent cut her description short.
"Well, thank you for showing me the way, Senora or Senorita, whichever you are--I think you must be Spanish--"
"Senorita"--she said, with gentle emphasis--"I am not married. You are right that I am Spanish."
"Such eyes as yours were never born of any blood but Spanish!" said Gwent--"I knew that at once! That you are not married is a bit of luck for some man--the man you WILL marry! For the moment adios! I shall dine at the Plaza this evening, and shall very likely bring my friend with me."
She shook her head smiling.
"You will not!"
"How so?"
"Because he will not come!"
She turned away, back towards the Hotel, and Gwent started to ascend the hill alone.
"Here's a new sort of game!"--he thought--"A game I should never have imagined possible to a man like Roger Seaton! Hiding himself up here in a consumption hut, and getting a beautiful woman to wait on him and 'take him his food'! It beats most things I've heard of! Dollar sensation books aren't in it! I wonder what Morgana Royal would say to it, if she knew! He's given her the slip this time!"
Half-way up the hill he paused to rest, and saw Seaton striding down at a rapid pace to meet him.
"Hullo, Gwent!"
"Hullo!"
The two men shook hands.
"I got your wire at the beginning of the week"--said Gwent--"and came as soon as I could get away. It's been a stiff journey too--but I wouldn't keep you waiting."
"Thanks,--it's as much your affair as mine"--said Seaton--"The thing is ripe for action if you care to act. It's quite in your hands, I hardly thought you'd come--"