te rose.

Charles wasn't interested in that, his thoughts were definitely turned
from girls, however flower-like; but he was engaged by Vincente and
Andres. He asked a great many questions about them, all tending to
discover, if possible, the activity of their patriotism. This, though,
was a subject which Domingo Escobar resolutely ignored.

Once, when Charles put a direct query with relation to Spain in Cuba,
the older man, abruptly replying at a tangent, ignored his question.
It would be necessary to ask Andres Escobar himself. That he would
have an opportunity to do this was assured, for Andres' parent, who
knew the Abbotts' banking friend intimately, had told Charles with
flattering sincerity how welcome he would be at the Escobar dwelling
on the Prado.

The Prado, it began to be clear, of all the possible places of
residence in Havana, was the best; the Escobars went to Paris when
they willed; and, altogether, Charles told himself, he had made a very
fortunate beginning. He picked up, from various sources on the
steamer, useful tags of knowledge about his destination:

The Inglaterra, to which he had been directed, was a capital hotel,
but outside the walls. Still, the Calle del Prado, the Paseo there,
were quite gay; and before them was the sweep of the Parque Isabel,
where the band played. At the Hotel St. Louis, next door, many of the
Spanish officers had their rooms, but at the hour of dinner they
gathered in the Cafe Dominica. The Noble Havana was celebrated for its
camarones--shrimps, Charles learned--and the Tuileries, at the
juncture of Consulado and San Rafael Streets, had a salon upstairs
especially for women. Most of his dinners, however, he would get at
the Restaurant Francais, excellently kept by Francois Garcon on Cuba
Street, number seventy-two.

There he would encounter the majority of his young fellow countrymen
in Havana; the Cafe El Louvre would serve for sherbets after the
theatre, and the Aguila de Oro.... The Plaza de Toros, of course, he
would frequent: it was on Belascoin Street near the sea. The afternoon
fights only were fashionable; the bulls killed in the morning were no
more than toro del aguadiente. And the cockpit was at the Valla de
Gallo.

There were other suggestions as well, put mostly in the form of ribald
inquiry; but toward them Charles Abbott persisted in an attitude of
uncommunicative disdain. His mind, his whole determination, had been
singularly purified; he had a s