Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/412

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN plainly, and tell everybody everything. And I believe that will be to me a greater delight than any amount of money could possibly be."

"Speak out!" cried Edna. "Of course we cannot. We have no more right to speak out now than we ever had. Captain Horn insisted that we should not speak of these affairs until he came, and he has not yet come."

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Cliff. "That seems to be the one thing he cannot do. He can do everything but come here. And are we to tell nobody that he has arrived in France?—not even that much?"

"I shall tell Ralph," replied Edna. "I shall write to him to come here as soon as possible, but that is all until the captain arrives, and we know everything that has been done, and is to be done. I don't wish any one, except you and me and Ralph, even to know that I have heard from him."

"Not Cheditafa? Not the professor? Nor any of your friends?"

"Of course not," said Edna, a little impatiently. "Don't you see how embarrassing, how impossible it would be for me to tell them anything, if I did not tell them everything? And what is there for me to tell them? When we have seen Captain Horn, we shall all know who we are, and what we are, and then we can speak out to the world, and I am sure I shall be glad enough to do it."

"For my part," said Mrs. Cliff, "I think we all know who we are now. I don't think anybody could tell us. And I think it would have been a great deal better—"

"No, it wouldn't!" exclaimed Edna. "Whatever 396