Later, at the Residenz Club, the General leaned over his beer-glass and smilingly addressed his companion.
"So I hear you, too, are a conquest of the beautiful South American." For an instant Paul, recognizing only Dona Anna under that epithet, looked puzzled.
"Come, my friend," said the General regarding him with some amusement, "I am an older man than you, yet I hardly think I could have ridden out with such a goddess without becoming her slave." Paul felt his face flush in spite of himself.

"Ah! you mean Miss Arguello," he said hurriedly, his color increasing at his own mention of that name as if he were imposing it upon his honest companion.

"She is an old acquaintance of mine--from my own State--California." "Ah, so," said the General, lifting his eyebrows in profound apology.
"A thousand pardons." "Surely," said Paul, with a desperate attempt to recover his equanimity, "YOU ought to know our geography better." "So, I am wrong.

But still the name--Arguello--surely that is not American?
Still, they say she has no accent, and does not look like a Mexican." For an instant Paul was superstitiously struck with the fatal infelicity of Yerba's selection of a foreign name, that now seemed only to invite that comment and criticism which she should have avoided.
Nor could he explain it at length to the General without assisting and accenting the deception, which he was always hoping in some vague way to bring to an end.

He was sorry he had corrected the General; he was furious that he had allowed himself to be confused.
Happily his companion had misinterpreted his annoyance, and with impulsive German friendship threw himself into what he believed to be Paul's feelings.