"What is it, Carmelita?" he asked.
She controlled herself, tried to smile and crumpled her cablegram defiantly.
"Bad news, dearest? Come, buck up—we can stand anything to-day, together."
She handed him her cablegram with a pathetic little gesture:
Dudley awkwardly read the stinging words over two or three times. He had not expected Carmelita's family to be overjoyed at their romantic elopement. But he had underestimated the terrible pride and ruthlessness of the old Spanish don. Not that he would have touched a penny of de Cordoba's fortune had it been showered upon him. This curt message was positively inhuman. Poor Carmelita. He put his hands on her drooping shoulders and smiled into her wet eyes. He lifted her quivering chin gently.
"We could hardly expect him to be pleased, could we, sweetheart? Don't worry—I'll take care of you, and I expect to be rich myself some day. Your father will change his mind."
And such was the present buoyancy of Carmelita's faith and courage and love that presently she was smiling also and up in Dudley's low-ceilinged, stuffy Paris room when he told,
