In his intolerable position, he was equally unable to contemplate her peril, accept her defense, or himself defend her.
As if, with some feminine instinct, she had attributed his silence to some jealousy of Don Caesar's attentions, she more than once turned from the Spaniard to Paul with an assuring smile.

In his anxiety, he half accepted the rather humiliating suggestion, and managed to say to her, in a lower tone:-- "On this last visit of your American guardian, one would think, you need not already anticipate your Spanish relations." He was thrilled with the mischievous yet faintly tender pleasure that sparkled in her eyes as she said,-- "You forget it is my American guardian's FIRST visit, as well as his last." "And as your guardian," he went on, with half-veiled seriousness, "I protest against your allowing your treasures, the property of the Trust," he gazed directly into her beautiful eyes, "being handled and commented upon by everybody." When the ladies had left the table, he was, for a moment, relieved.

But only for a moment.

Judge Baker drew his chair beside Paul's, and, taking his cigar from his lips, said, with a perfunctory laugh:-- "I say, Hathaway, I pulled up just in time to save myself from making an awful speech, just now, to your ward." Paul looked at him with cold curiosity.
"Yes.

Gad! Do you know WHO was my rival in that necklace transaction ?" "No," said Paul, with frigid carelessness.
"Why, Kate Howard! Fact, sir.