"What," he cried, "you have told your mother the whole story ?" "My mother is a Spaniard, she will guess what one leaves unsaid." "And you are not ashamed that she should know ?" "That is why I am sending her your likeness; she will then understand that, on the contrary, I have every reason to be proud." What she did not consider it necessary to explain to him was, that she had palmed off a complete romance upon the Marquise de Henares, to the effect that Wilhelm had saved her life at Ault while bathing, that he was a celebrated German revolutionist, and the future President of the German Republic, to whom she was affording a refuge in her house because, for the time being, he was obliged to be in hiding from the German secret police, and so forth, and so forth.
The marquise believed every word.

In her answer, she certainly reproached her daughter gently for having anything to do with foreign conspirators, but otherwise praised her evidence of gratitude toward her preserver, and frankly expressed her admiration for the handsome person of this interesting German.

She even inclosed a note to him, in which she thanked him from her overflowing mother's heart for all he had done for her only child, and adjured him to be very prudent.

He could make nothing out of it, and Pilar declared that she was equally in the dark.

"I only see this much," she said in an off-hand manner, "that mamma loves you already, and will do still more so when she gets to know you personally.