Explore "A Volunteer with Pike" by Robert Ames Bennet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was not with a light heart that I returned to Mickie's Hotel. I had made my cast, and fortune was against me. In the afternoon I had left Alisanda smiling down upon me from the balcony of her inn window; I was returning at nightfall to meet -- Senorita Vallois. Though to the last she and Don Pedro might hold to the familiar "Juan," how little might even her smiles lighten the shadow of a hopeless parting!
As I entered the inn door, Mickie bustled forward to inform me, with an air of vast importance, that at the request of the Spanish grandee, he had arranged to serve the evening meal to the senor's party above stairs. When he added that a plate was to be laid for myself, I hastened to my own room for a change of linen.