The public friendship between Dodge and the charming Señorita deepened obviously with each day. Hints of an early marriage flecked "The Hawk's Eye." Mrs. Todd began to feel herself personally injured by her wilful daughter. Finally, goaded into action and spurred by her own restless heart, the girl made a counter-move of a sudden and desperate intimacy with Carmen herself. Such things are not unknown in the history of adolescence. Carmen yielded to the American's bright fascination with the caressing languor characteristic of her. The two girls lunched together, dined, drove, and had tea together, and spoke of each other in exaggerated terms of endearment. Dodge, whatever his private surmises, retained an unaltered front. Naturally he and Gwendolen were more often together. She showed to him an air of cherished hostility, varied by small lightning-flashes of appeal. Two feminine currents blew full upon him. Dodge kept his hat on. The beautiful Castilian bore toward him the attitude of an indulgent conqueror. Gwendolen aided this, and whenever possible threw Dodge into the position of Carmen's accepted lover. Also, for some reason known only to herself, she encouraged the Spanish girl in her belief in Dodge's overwhelming adoration. Gwendolen soon discovered that her new friend had an uncontrollable yearning for "dulces," and eagerly embraced this opportunity for demonstrating her new affection. Gwendolen scoured the alleys of old Yedo for novel sweetmeats; she purveyed from the French shops of Yokohama imported dainties; she sent a telegraphic order to a certain New York confectioner. Carmen appreciated and devoured all results. The Japanese confections, which many other European ladies might (without, of course, having tasted) pretend to despise, she declared delicious. The "ama-natto," or small purple bean, boiled and sugar-coated with lilac frosting, she called "fairy marron." Mikan, or small oranges preserved whole, with a flake of cinnamon and ginger, gained an established place on the Spanish Legation table. "Hakka ame," that delicious triangle of peppermint cream, improved from an American missionary's original recipe, vied in public favor, as a hors-d'oeuvre with French bonbons, salted almonds, and olives. Once Carmen's French maid, suspecting, perhaps, more than a purely altruistic intention in Gwendolen's persistent offerings, warned her young mistress against immoderate indulgence in sweet foods, and protested, with many gesticulations and a hint of tears, that the very last importation of Paris gowns already needed the letting out of seams, and would soon be unwearable. "Nonsense, Lizette," smiled the pampered one, "not eat dulces? I have always eaten dulces. How, in the Virgin's name, would one get through a novel without a plate of dulces beside it?"