Miss Paulo sat for a while thoughtfully biting the top of her quill pen and looking out dreamily into the street. Her little sitting-room faced Knightsbridge and the trees and grass of the Park. Often when some problem of the domestic economy of the hotel caused her a passing perplexity, she would derive new vigour for grappling with complicated sums from a leisurely study of those green spaces and the animated panorama of the passing crowd. But to-day there was nothing particularly complicated about the family accounts, and Dolores Paulo sought for no arithmetical inspiration from the pleasant out-look. Her mind was wholly occupied with the thought of what Captain Sarrasin had been saying to her—of the possible peril that threatened the Dictator.

She drew the feather from between her lips and tapped the blotting-pad with it impatiently.

'Why should I trouble my head or my heart about him?' she asked herself bitterly. 'He doesn't trouble his head or his heart about me.'

But she felt ashamed of her petulant speech immediately. She seemed to see the grave, sweet face of the Dictator looking down at her in surprise; she seemed to see the strong soldierly face of Captain Sarrasin frown upon her sternly.

'Ah,' she meditated with a sigh, 'it is only natural that he should fall in love with a girl like that. She can be of use to him—of use to his cause. What use can I be to him or to his cause? There is nothing I can do except to look out for a possible South American with an especially dark skin and especially curly moustache.'

As she reflected thus, her eye, wandering over the populous thoroughfare and the verdure beyond, populous also, noted, or rather accepted, the presence of one particular man out of the many. The one particular man was walking slowly up and down on the roadside opposite to the hotel by the Park railings. That he was walking up and down Dolores became conscious of through the fact that, having half unconsciously seen him once float into her ken, she noted him again, with some slight surprise, and was aware of him yet a third time with still greater surprise. The man paced slowly up and down on what appeared to be a lengthy beat, for Dolores mentally calculated that something like a minute must have elapsed between each glimpse of his face as he moved in the direction in which she most readily beheld him. He was a man a little above the middle height, with a keen, aquiline face, smooth-shaven, and red-haired. There was nothing in his dress to render him in the least remarkable; he was dressed like everybody else, Dolores said to herself, and it must therefore have been his face that somehow or other attracted her vagrant fancy. Yet it was not a particularly attractive face in any sense. It was not a comely face which would compel the admiring attention of a girl, nor was it a face so strongly marked, so out of the ordinary lines, as to command attention by its ugliness or its strength of character. It was the smooth-shaven face of an average man of a fair-haired race; there was something Scotch about it—Lowland Scotch, the kind of face of which one might see half a hundred in an hour's stroll along the main street of Glasgow or Prince's Street in Edinburgh. Dolores had been in both these cities and knew the type, and as it was not a specially interesting type she soon diverted her gaze from the unknown and resumed attentively her table of figures. But she had not given many seconds to their consideration when her attention was again diverted. A four-wheeled cab had driven up to the door with a considerable pile of luggage on it. There was nothing very remarkable in that. The arrival of a cab loaded with luggage was an event of hourly occurrence at Paulo's Hotel, and quite unlikely to arouse any especial interest in the mind of Miss Dolores. What, however, did languidly arouse her interest, did slightly stir her surprise, was that the smooth-shaven patroller of the opposite side of the way immediately crossed the road as the cab drew up, and standing by the side of the cab door proceeded to greet the occupant of the cab. Even that was not very much out of the way, and yet Dolores was sufficiently interested to lay down her pen and to see who should emerge from the vehicle, around which now the usual little guard of hotel porters had gathered.

A big man got out of the cab, a big man with a blonde beard and amiable spectacles. He carried under his arm a large portfolio, and in each hand he carried a collection of books belted together in a hand-strap. He was enveloped in a long coat, and his appearance and the appearance of his luggage suggested that he had travelled, and even from some considerable distance.

Curiosity is often an inexplicable thing, even to the curious, and certainly Dolores would have been hard put to it to explain why she felt any curiosity about the new arrival and the man who had so patiently awaited him. But she did feel curious, and mingled with her curiosity was a vague sense of something like compassion, if not exactly of pity, for she knew very well that at that moment the hotel was very full, and that the new-comer would have to put up with rather uncomfortable quarters if he were lucky enough to get any at all. The sense of curiosity was, however, stronger than her sense of compassion, and she ran rapidly down stairs by her own private stair and slipped into the little room at the back of the hotel office, where either her father or her mother was generally to be found. At this particular moment, as it happened, neither her father nor mother was in the little room. The door communicating with the office stood slightly ajar, and Dolores, standing by it, could see into the office and hear all that passed without being seen.

The blonde-bearded stranger came up to the office smiling confidently. He had still his portfolio under his arm, but his smooth-shaven friend had relieved him of the two bundles of books, and stood slightly apart while the rest of the new-comer's belongings were being piled into a huge mound of impedimenta in the hall. Dolores expected the confident smile of the blonde man to disappear rapidly from his face. But it did not disappear. He said something to the office clerk which Dolores could not catch; the clerk immediately nodded, rang for a page-boy, collected sundry keys from their hooks, and handed them to the page-boy, who immediately made off in the direction of the lift, heralding the blonde-bearded stranger, with his smooth-shaven friend still in attendance, while a squad of porters descended upon the luggage and wafted it away with the rapidity of Afrite magicians.

Dolores could not restrain her curiosity. She opened the door wider and called to the clerk, 'Mr. Wilkins.'

Mr. Wilkins looked round. He was a tall, alert, sharp-looking young man, whose only weakness in life was a hopeless attachment to Miss Paulo.

'Yes, Miss Paulo.'

'Who was the gentleman who just arrived, Mr. Wilkins?'

Mr. Wilkins seemed a little surprised at the interest Miss Paulo displayed in the arrival of a stranger. But he made the most of the occasion. He was glad to have anything to tell which could possibly interest her.

'That,' said Mr. Wilkins with a certain pride, 'is quite a distinguished person in his way. He is Professor Wilberforce P. Flick, President of the Denver and Sacramento Folk-Lore Societies. He has been travelling on the Continent for some time past for the benefit of the societies, and has now arrived in London for the purpose of making acquaintance with the members of the leading lights of folk-lore in this country.'

Dolores laughed. 'Did he tell you all that just now?' she asked.

'Oh, no,' the young man replied, 'Oh, no, Miss Paulo. All that valuable information I gained largely from a letter from the distinguished gentleman himself from Paris last week, and partially also from the spontaneous statements of his friend Mr. Andrew J. Copping, of Omaha, who is now in London, and who came here to see if his friend's rooms were duly reserved.'

'Was that Mr. Copping who was with the Professor just now?'

'Yes, the clean-shaven man was Mr. Andrew J. Copping, of Omaha.'

'Is he also stopping at the hotel?' Miss Paulo asked.

'No.' Mr. Wilkins explained. Mr. Copping was apparently for the time a resident of London, and lived, he believed, somewhere in the Camden Town region. But he was very anxious that his friend and compatriot should be comfortable, and that his rooms should be commodious.

'How many rooms does Professor Flick occupy?' asked Miss Paulo.

It seemed that the Professor occupied a little suite of rooms which comprised a bedroom and sitting-room, with a bath-room. It seemed that the Professor was a very studious person and that he would take all his meals by himself, as he pursued the study of folk-lore even at his meals, and wished not to have his attention in the least disturbed during the process.

'What an impassioned scholar!' said Miss Paulo. 'I had no idea that places like Denver and Sacramento were leisurely enough to produce such ardent students of folk-lore.'

'Not to mention Omaha,' added Mr. Wilkins.

'Is Mr. Copping also a folk-lorist then?' inquired Miss Paulo; and Mr. Wilkins replied that he believed so, that he had gathered as much from the remarks of Mr. Copping on the various occasions when he had called at the hotel.

'The various occasions?'

Yes, Mr. Copping had called several times, to make quite sure of everything concerning his friend's comfort. He was very particular about the linen being aired one morning. Another morning ho looked in to ascertain whether the chimneys smoked, as the learned Professor often liked a fire in his rooms even in summer. A third time he called to enquire if the water in the bath-room was warm enough at an early hour in the morning, as the learned Professor often rose early to devote himself to his great work!

'What a thoughtful friend, to be sure!' said Miss Paulo. 'It is pleasant to find that great scholarship can secure such devoted disciples. For I suppose Professor Flick is a great scholar.'

'One of the greatest in the world, as I understand from Mr. Copping,' replied Mr. Wilkins. 'I understand from Mr. Copping that when Professor Flick's great work appears it will revolutionise folk-lore all over the world.'

'Dear me!' said Miss Paulo; 'how little one does know, to be sure. I had no idea that folk-lore required revolutionising.'

'Neither had I,' said Mr. Wilkins; 'but apparently it does.'

'And Professor Flick is the man to do it, apparently,' said Miss Paulo.

'If Mr. Copping is correct about the great work,' said Mr. Wilkins.

'Ay, yes, the great work. And what is the great work? Did Mr. Copping communicate that as well?'

Oh, yes, Mr. Copping had communicated that as well. The great work was a study in American folk-lore, and it went to establish, as far as Mr. Wilkins could gather from Mr. Copping's glowing but somewhat disconnected phrases, that all the legends of the world were originally the property of the Ute Indians, who, with the Apaches, constituted, according to the Professor, the highest intellectual types on the surface of the earth.

'Well,' said Dolores, 'all that, I dare say, is very interesting and exciting, and even exhilarating to the studious inhabitants of Denver and of Sacramento. I wonder if it will greatly interest London? Where have you put Professor Flick?'

Professor Flick was located, it appeared, upon the first floor. It seemed, according to the representations of the devoted Copping, that Professor Flick was a very nervous man about the possibility of fires; that he never willingly went higher than the first floor in consequence, and that he always carried with him in his baggage a patent rope-ladder for fear of accidents.

'On the first floor,' said Miss Paulo. 'Which rooms?'

'The end suite at the right. On the same side as the rooms of his Excellency, but further off. Mr. Copping seems to like their situation the best of all the rooms I showed him.'

'On the same side as his Excellency's rooms? Well, I should think Professor Flick would be a quiet neighbour.'

'Probably, for he was very anxious to be quiet himself. But I am afraid the fame of our illustrious guest does not extend so far as Denver, for Mr. Copping asked what the flag was flying for, and when I told him he did not seem to be a bit the wiser.'

'The stupid man!' said Miss Paulo scornfully.

'And Professor Flick is just as bad. When I mentioned to him that his rooms were near those of Mr. Ericson, the Dictator of Gloria, he said that he had never heard of him, but that he hoped he was a quiet man, and did not sit up late.'

'Really,' said Miss Paulo, frowning, 'this Mr. Flick would seem to think that the world was made for folk-lore, and that he was folk-lore's CÆsar.'

'Ah, Miss Paulo,' said the practical Wilkins, with a smile, 'these scholars have queer ways.'

'Evidently,' answered Miss Paulo, 'evidently. Well, I suppose we must humour them sometimes, for the sake of the Utes and Apaches at least;' and, with the sunniest of smiles, Miss Paulo withdrew from the office, leaving, as it seemed to Mr. Wilkins, who was something of a poet in his spare moments, the impression as of departed divinity. The atmosphere of the hotel hall seemed to take a rosy tinge, and to be impregnated with enchanting odours as from the visit of an Olympian. Mr. Wilkins had been going through a course of Homer of late, in Bohn's translation, and permitted himself occasionally to allow his fancy free play in classical allusion. Never, though, to his credit be it recorded, did his poetic studies or his love-dreamings operate in the least to the detriment of his serious duties as head of the office in Paulo's Hotel, a post which, to do him justice, he looked upon as scarcely less important than that of a Cabinet Minister.

Since the day when Dolores first spoke to Hamilton about the danger which was supposed to threaten the Dictator, she had had many talks with the young man. It became his habit now to stop and talk with her whenever he had a chance of meeting her. It was pleasant to him to look into her soft, bright, deep-dark eyes. Her voice sounded musical in his ears. The touch of her hand soothed him. His devotion to the Dictator touched her; her devotion to the Dictator touched him. For a while they had only one topic of conversation—the Dictator, and the fortunes of Gloria.

Soon the clever and sympathetic girl began to think that Hamilton had some trouble in his mind or in his heart which did not strictly belong to the fortunes of the Dictator. There was an occasional melancholy glance in his eye, and then there came a sudden recovery, an almost obvious pulling of himself together, which Dolores endeavoured to reason out. She soon reasoned it out to her own entire conviction, if not to her entire satisfaction. For she felt deeply sorry for the young man. He had been crossed in love, she felt convinced. Oh, yes, he had been crossed in love! Some girl had deceived him, and had thrown him over! And he was so handsome, and so gentle, and so brave, and what better could the girl have asked for? And Dolores became quite angry with the unnamed, unknown girl. Her manner grew all the more genial and kindly to Hamilton. All unconsciously, or perhaps feeling herself quite safe in her conviction that Hamilton's heart was wholly occupied with his love, she allowed herself a certain tone of tender friendship, wholly unobtrusive, almost wholly impersonal—a tender sympathy with the suffering, perhaps, rather than with the sufferer, but bringing much sweetness of voice to the sufferer's ear.

The two became quite confidential about the Dictator and the danger that was supposed to be threatening him. They had long talks over it—and there was an element of secrecy and mystery about the talks which gave them a certain piquancy and almost a certain sweetness. Of course these talks had to be all confidential. It was not to be supposed that the Dictator would allow, if he knew, that any work should be made about any personal danger to him. Therefore Hamilton and Dolores had to talk in an underhand kind of way, and to turn on to quite indifferent subjects when anyone not in the mystery happened to come in. The talks took place sometimes in the public corridor—often in Dolores' own little room. Sometimes the Dictator himself looked in by chance and exchanged a few words with Miss Dolores, and then, of course, the confidential talk collapsed. The Dictator liked Dolores very much. He thought her a remarkably clever and true-hearted girl, and quite a princess and a beauty in her way, and he had more than once said so to Hamilton.

One day Dolores ventured to ask Hamilton, 'Is it true what they say about his Excellency?' and she blushed a little at her own boldness in asking the question.

'Is what true?' Hamilton asked in return, and all unconscious of her meaning.

'Well, is it true that he is going to marry—Sir Rupert Langley's daughter?'

Then Hamilton's face, usually so pale, flushed a sudden red, and for a moment he could hardly speak. He opened his mouth once or twice, but the words did not come.

'Who said that?' he asked at last.

'I don't know,' Dolores answered, much alarmed and distressed, with a light breaking on her that made her flush too. 'I heard it said somewhere—I dare say it's not true. Oh, I am quite sure it is not true—but people always are saying such things.'

'It can't be true,' Hamilton said. 'If he had any thought of it he would have told me. He knows that there is nothing I could desire more than that he should be made happy.'

Again he almost broke down.

'Yes, if it would make him happy,' Dolores intervened once again, plucking up her courage.

'She is a very noble girl,' Hamilton said, 'but I don't believe there is anything in it. She admires him as we all do.'

'Why, yes, of course,' said Dolores.

'I don't think the Dictator is a marrying man. He has got the cause of Gloria for a wife. Good morning, Miss Paulo. I have to get to the Foreign Office.'

'I hope I haven't vexed you,' Dolores asked eagerly, and yet timidly, 'by asking a foolish question and taking notice of silly gossip?'

She knew Hamilton's secret now, and in her sympathy and her kindliness and her assurance of being safe from misconstruction she laid her hand gently on the young man's arm, and he looked at her, and thought he saw a moisture in her eyes. And he knew that his secret was his no longer. He knew that Dolores had in a moment seen the depths of his trouble. Their eyes looked at each other, and then, only too quickly, away from each other.

'Vexed me?' he said. 'No, indeed, Miss Paulo. You are one of the kindest friends I have in the world.'

Now, what had this speech to do with the question of whether the Dictator was likely or was not likely to ask Helena Langley to marry him? Nothing at all, so far as an outer observer might see. But it had a good deal to do with the realities of the situation for Hamilton and Dolores. It meant, if its meaning could then have been put into plain words on the part of Hamilton—'I know that you have found out my secret—and I know, too, that you will be kind and tender with it—and I like you all the better for having found it out, and for being so tender with it, and it will be another bond of friendship between us—that, and our common devotion to the Dictator. But this we cannot have in common with the Dictator. Of this, however devoted to him we are, he must now know nothing. This is for ourselves alone—for you and me.' It is a serious business with young men and women when any story and any secret is to be confined to 'you and me.'

For Dolores it meant that now she had a perfect right to be sympathetic and kindly and friendly with Hamilton. She felt as if she were in his absolute heart-confidence—although he had told her nothing whatever, and she did not want him to tell her anything whatever. She knew enough. He was in love, and he was disappointed. She? Well, she really had not been in love, but she had been all unconsciously looking out for love, and she had fancied that she was falling in love with the Dictator. She was an enthusiast for his cause; and for his cause because of himself. With her it was the desire of the moth for the star—of the night for the morrow. She knew this quite well. She knew that that was the sole and the full measure of her feeling towards the Dictator. But all the same, up to this time she had never felt any stirring of emotion towards any other man. She must have known—sharp-sighted girl that she was—that poor Mr. Wilkins adored her. She did know it—and she was very much interested in the knowledge, and thought it was such a pity, and was sorry for him—honestly and sincerely sorry—and was ever so kind and friendly to him. But her mind was not greatly troubled about his love. She took it for granted that Mr. Wilkins would get over his trouble, and would marry some girl who would be fond of him. It always happens like that. So her mind was at rest about Wilkins.

Thus, her mind being at rest about Wilkins, because she knew that, as far as she was concerned, it never could come to anything, and her mind being equally at rest about the Dictator, because she felt sure that on his part it could never come to anything, she had leisure to give some of her sympathies to Hamilton, now that she knew his secret. Then about Hamilton—how about him?

There are moments in life—not moments in actual clock-time, but eventful moments in feelings when one seems to be conscious of a special influence of sympathy and kindness breathing over him like a healing air. A great misfortune has come down upon one's life, and the conviction is for the time that nothing in life can ever be well with him again. The sun shines no more for him; the birds sing no more for him; or, if their notes do make their way into his dulled and saddened ears, it is only to break his heart as the notes of the birds did for the sufferer on the banks of bonnie Doon. The afflicted one seems to lie as in a darkened room, and to have no wish ever to come out into the broad, free, animating air again—no wish to know any more what is going on in the world outside. Friends of all kinds, and in all kindness, come and bring their futile, barren consolations, and make offers of unneeded, unacceptable service, as unpalatable as the offer of the Grand Duchess in 'Alice in Wonderland,' who, declaring that she knows what the thirsty, gasping little girl wants, tenders her a dry biscuit. The dry biscuit of conventional service is put to the lips of the choking sufferer, and cannot be swallowed. Suddenly some voice, perhaps all unknown before, is heard in the darkened chamber, and it is as if a hand were laid on the sufferer's shoulder, tenderly touching him and arousing him to life once more. The voice seems to whisper, 'Come, arise! Awake from mere self-annihilation in grief; there is something yet to live for; the world has still some work to do—for you. There are paths to be found for you; there are even, it may be, loves to be loved by you and for you. Arise and come out into the light of the sun and the light of the stars again.' The voice does not really say all this or any of this. If it were to do so, it would be only going over the old sort of consolation which proved hopeless and only a source of renewed anguish when it was offered by the ordinary well-meaning friends. But the peculiar, the timely, the heaven-sent influence breathes all this and much more than this into a man—and the hand that seems at first to be laid so gently on his shoulder now takes him, still so gently—oh, ever so gently, but very firmly by the arm, and leads him out of the room darkened by despair and into the open air, where the sun shines not with mocking and gaudy glare, but with tender, soft, and sympathising light, and the new life has begun, and the healing of the sufferer is a question of time. It may be that he never quite knows from whom the sudden peculiarity of influence streamed in so beneficently upon him. Perhaps the source of inspiration is there just by his side, but he knows nothing of it. Happy the man who, under such conditions, does know where to find the holy well from which came forth the waters that cured his pain, and sent him out into life to be a man among men again.

Poor Hamilton was, as he put it himself, hit very hard when he learned that Helena Langley absolutely refused him. It was not the slightest consolation to him to know that she was quite willing that their friendship should go on unbroken. He was rather glad, on the whole, not to hear that she had declared herself willing to regard him as a brother. Those dreadful old phrases only make the refusal ten times worse. Probably the most wholesome way in which a refusal could be put to a sensitive young man is the blunt, point-blank declaration that never, under any circumstances, could there be a thought of the girl's loving him and having him for her husband. Then a young man who is worth his salt is thrown back upon his own mettle, and recognises the conditions under which he has to battle his life out, and if he is really good for anything he soon adapts himself to them. For the time the struggle is terrible. No cheapness of cynicism will persuade a young man that he does not suffer genuine anguish when under this pang of misprized love. But the sooner he knows the worst the more soon is he likely to be able to fight his way out of the deeps of his misery.

Hamilton did not quite realise the fact as yet—perhaps did not realise it at all—but the friendly voice in his ear, the friendly touch on his arm, that bade him come out into the light and live once again a life of hope, was the voice and the touch of Dolores Paulo. And for her part she knew it just as little as he did.