"Perhaps--"
"_Bueno_," she cried. "Good. Ask him, _padre_, please, please."
The old man smiled. Then he came over to where Fred and I were
standing.
"Did you hear the girl," he asked, "the little scamp? She thinks I am
too old to take her to the ball--and too uninteresting. She wishes to
know if the _senores_ would care to go with her in my place. It would
perhaps be interesting to you."
I guessed what she really wanted, so I spoke:
"You go, Fritz. I'd like to, only my foot's too bad."
"I won't go without you," he said.
Here I took him aside and told him what I had seen at the table.
"Now," I said, "if you don't go you're a fool. And personally I'd
rather stay here anyhow and talk to the _don_."
"All right. I'll do it."
The girl was watching him, and as he spoke she smiled. Then she walked
over to him, put both her hands in his, looked up into his face and
laughed aloud, a cheery, rippling laugh.
"For to-night," she said, "you shall be my cavalier, _mi caballero_."
Then I heard him whisper in Spanish:
"I will. And you shall be my lady.
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