"Not less willingly if your interest and mine coincided?"

I was about to make a passionate reply when we heard the President's
voice saying:

"And where is our hostess? I should like to thank her before I go."

"Hush," whispered the signorina. "We must go back. You will be true to
me, Mr. Martin?"

"Call me Jack," said I idiotically.

"Then you will be true, O _Jack_?" she said, stifling a laugh.

"Till death," said I, hoping it would not be necessary.

She gave me her hand, which I kissed with fervor, and we returned to
the _salon_, to find all the players risen from the table and standing
about in groups, waiting to make their bows till the President had
gone through that ceremony. I was curious to hear if anything passed
between him and the signorina, but I was pounced upon by Donna
Antonia, the daughter of the minister of finance, who happened to be
present, notwithstanding the late hour, as a guest of the signorina's
for the night. She was a handsome young lady, a Spanish brunette of
the approved pattern, but with manners formed at a New York boarding
school, where she had undergone a training that had tempered, without
destroying, her native gentility. She had distinguished me very
favorably, and I was vain enough to suppose she honored me by some
jealousy of my _penchant_ for the signorina.