Gwent stared openly.

Here--if "prize beauties" were anything--was a real winner! "This gentleman wants Mr.Seaton"-- said the bookkeeper--"Just show him the way up the hill." "Sorry to trouble you!" said Gwent, raising his hat with a courtesy not common to his manner.
"Oh, it is no trouble!" and Manella smiled at him in the most ravishing way--"The path is quite easy to follow." She preceded him out of the "floral hall," and across the great gardens, now in their most brilliant bloom to a gate which she opened, pointing with one hand towards the hill where the flat outline of the "hut of the dying" could be seen clear against the sky.
"There it is"-- she explained--"It's nothing of a climb, even on the warmest day.

And the air is quite different up there to what it is down here." "Better, I suppose ?" "Oh, yes! Much better!" "And is that why Mr.Seaton lives in the hut?
On account of the air ?" Manella waved her hands expressively with a charming Spanish gesture of indifference.
"I suppose so! How should I know?
He is here for his health." Sam Gwent uttered a curious inward sound, something between a grunt and a cough.
"Ah! I should like to know how long he's been ill!" Manella again gave her graceful gesture.
"Surely you DO know if you are a friend of his ?" she said.
He looked keenly at her.
"Are YOU a friend of his ?" She smiled--almost laughed.
"I?
I am only a help in the Plaza--I take him his food--" "Take him his food!" Sam Gwent growled out something like an oath--"What! Can't he come and get it for himself?
Is he treated like a bear in a cage or a baby in a cradle ?" Manella gazed at him with reproachful soft eyes.
"Oh, you are rough!" she said--"He pays for whatever little trouble he gives.

Indeed it is no trouble! He lives very simply--only on new milk and bread.

I expect his health will not stand anything else--though truly he does not look ill--" Gwent cut her description short.
"Well, thank you for showing me the way, Senora or Senorita, whichever you are--I think you must be Spanish--" "Senorita"-- she said, with gentle emphasis--"I am not married.