fully to her, and she listened intently.
"You think," she interrupted, "that a woman must be attached to
something real, like your arm or a pot of gold. You know them, and
that at your age, at any age, is a marvel enough in itself. The wisest
men in Europe have tried to understand the first movement of my
dancing--how, in it, a race, the whole history of a nation, is
expressed in the stamp of a heel, the turn of a hip. They wonder what,
in me, had happened to the maternal instinct, why I chose to reflect
life, as though I were a mirror, rather than experience it. And now,
it seems, you see everything, all is clear to you. You have put a
label, such as are in museums, on women; good!"

She smiled at him, mocking but not unkind.

"However," he told her crossly, "that is of very little importance.
How did we begin? I have forgotten already."

"In this way," she said coolly; "I asked if it would be of any
interest to--let us say, your friends, to learn that the United
States, in spite of the Administration, will not recognize a
Republican Cuba. Fish is unchangeably opposed to the insurgents. You
may expect no help there."

"That might be important to the insurgents," he admitted; "but where
are they to be found--in the cabildos of Los Egidos?"

"At least repeat what you have heard to Escobar: is it Andres or
Vincente?"

The name of Andres' brother was spoken so unexpectedly, the faintest
knowledge of Vincente on the part of the dancer of such grave
importance, that Charles Abbott momentarily lost his composure.
"Vincente!" he exclaimed awkwardly. "Was that the other brother? But
he is dead."

"Not yet," she replied. "It is planned for tonight, after dinner, when
he is smoking in the little upper salon."

Agitated, at a loss for further protest, he rose. He must go at once
to the Escobars, warn them. "You will admit now that I have been of
use," La Clavel was standing beside him. "And it is possible, if
Vincente Escobar isn't found, and Ceaza discovers that you were here,
that--" she paused significantly. "I am the victim of a madness," she
declared, "of a Cuban fever." But there was no time now to analyse the
processes of her mind and sex.

"I'll be going," he said abruptly.

"Naturally," she returned; "but what about your coming back? That will
be more difficult, and yet it is necessary. Ah, yes, you must pretend
to be in love with me; it will be hard, but what else is there? A
dancer has always a number of y