"I've
read a good bit, ma'am, and I'm a noble listener. I remember good,
too. Why, I had a picture of the Bastille once." He pronounced it
"Bastilly," and his hearer settled back. "That was some calaboose,
now, wasn't it?" A moment later he inquired, ingenuously, "I don't
suppose you ever saw that Bastille, did you?"
"No. Only the place where it stood."
"Sho! You must have traveled right smart for such a young lady."
He beamed amiably upon her.
"I was educated abroad, and I only came home--to be married."
Law noted the lifeless way in which she spoke, and he understood.
"I'll bet you hablar those French and German lingoes like a
native," he ventured. "Beats me how a person can do it."
"You speak Spanish, don't you?"
"Oh yes. But I was born in Mexico, as near as I can make out."
"And you probably speak some of the Filipino dialects?"
"Yes'm, a few."
There was something winning about this young man's modesty, and
something flattering in his respectful admiration. He seemed,
also, to know his place, a fact which was even more in his favor.
Undoubtedly he had force and ability; probably his love of
adventure and a happy lack of settled purpose had led him to
neglect his more commonplace opportunities and sent him first into
the army and thence into the Ranger service.
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