What you say about Rosa only makes me
more eager, for I loathe a sleepy woman. Now tell me, is she--Has
she any-affairs of the heart?"
"N-no, unless perhaps a flirtation with that young American, Juan
O'Reilly." Dona Isabel gave the name its Spanish pronunciation of
"O'Rail-ye."
"Juan O'Reilly? O'Reilly? Oh yes! But what has he to offer a
woman? He is little more than a clerk."
"That is what I tell her. Oh, it hasn't gone far as yet."
"Good!" Don Mario rose to leave, for the exertion of his ride had
made him thirsty. "You may name your own reward for helping me and
I will pay it the day Rosa marries me. Now kindly advise her of my
intentions and tell her I shall come to see her soon."
It was quite true that Johnnie O'Reilly--or "The O'Reilly," as his
friends called him--had little in the way of worldly advantage to
offer any girl, and it was precisely because of this fact that he
had accepted a position here in Cuba, where, from the very nature
of things, promotion was likely to be more rapid than in the New
York office of his firm. He had come to this out-of-the-way place
prepared to live the lonely life of an exile, if an O'Reilly could
be lonely anywhere, and for a brief time he had been glum enough.
But the O'Reillys, from time immemorial, had been born and bred to
exile; it was their breath, their meat and drink, and this
particular member of the clan thrived upon it quite as well as had
the other Johnnies and Michaels and Andys who had journeyed to far
shores.
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