"Do you _ever_ think of anything?" she complained sharply. "Oh, yes, often, of many things." "What things on earth?" (with sudden inquisitive eagerness.) "Just my own sort of things," Mariquita answered, without saying whether "her things" were on earth at all. Sarella pouted again. "You're not very confidential to a person." Mariquita weighed the accusation. "Perhaps," she said quietly, "I am not much used to persons. Since I came home from the convent there was no other girl here till you came." "So you're sorry I came!" "No; glad. I am glad you did that. It is a home for you. And I am sure my father is glad." "You think he likes my being here?" And Sarella listened attentively for the answer. "Of course. You must see it." "You think he does not dislike me? He was cross with me last night." "He did not like you noticing Mr. Gore was away--" "Of course I noticed it--surely, he could not be jealous of that!" "I should not think he could be jealous," Mariquita agreed, too readily to please Sarella. "But I did not think of it. I am sure he does not dislike you. You cannot think he does." Sarella was far from thinking it. But she had wanted Mariquita to say more, and was only partly satisfied. "_He_ would not like me to go away?" she suggested. "Oh, no. The contrary." "Not even if it were advantageous to me?" "How advantageous?" "If I were to be going to a home of my own? Going, for instance, to be married?" "That would surprise him...." Sarella was not pleased at this. "Surprise him! Why should it surprise him that anyone should marry me?" "There is no reason. Only, he does not imagine that there _is_ someone. If there is someone, he would suppose you had not been willing to marry him by your coming here instead." ("Is she stupid or cautious?" Sarella asked herself. "She will say nothing.") Mariquita was neither cautious nor stupid. She was only ignorant of Sarella's purpose, and by no means awake to her father's. "It is terribly hot out here," Sarella grumbled, "and there is such a glare. I shall go in and study." CHAPTER X. Mariquita did not go in too. She did not find it hot, nor did the glare trouble her. The air was full of life and vigor, and she had no sense of lassitude. There was, indeed, a breeze from the far-off Rockies, and to her it seemed cool enough, though the sun was so nearly directly overhead that her figure cast only a very stunted shadow of herself. In the long grass the breeze made a slight rustle, but there was no other sound.