to her befriending you.… It's a deuced awkward position—for the fact that I intend to kill Rivoli, if I can, hardly gives me a claim on Carmelita. She loves the very ground the brute treads on, you know, and it would take me, or anybody else, a precious long time to persuade her that the man who rid the world of Luigi Rivoli would be her very best friend.… He's the most noxious and poisonous reptile I have ever come across, and I believe she is one of the best of good little women.… It is a hole we're in. We've got to see Carmelita swindled and then jilted and broken-hearted; or we've got to bring the blackest grief upon her by saving her from Rivoli."
"Do you love her too, Monsieur?" asked Olga.
"Good Heavens, no!" laughed the Englishman. "But I have a very great liking and regard for her, and so has my friend Rupert. It is poor old Buck who loves her, and I am really sorry for him. It's bad enough to love a woman and be unable to win her, but it must be awful to see her in the power of a man whom you know to be an utter blackguard.… Queer thing, Life.… I suppose there is some purpose in it.… Here they come," he added, looking round.
"Who's gwine ter intervoo Carmelita, and put her wise to the sitooation?" asked the Bucking Bronco as he and Rupert joined the others. "Guess yew'd better, John. Yew know more Eye-talian and French than we do, an', what's more, Carmelita wouldn't think there was any 'harry-air ponsey'—or is it 'double-intender'—ef the young woman is interdooced, as sich, by yew."
"All right," replied John Bull. "I'll do my best—and we must all weigh in with our entreaties if I fail."
