, she said, "I like you." She was half
turned from him, in profile, and her lips had not seemed to move. Seen
that way her nose was minute, the upward twist of her eye emphasized,
her mouth no more than a painted sardonic curl. She was as slender as
a boy of a race unknown to Charles--without warmth, without impulses,
fashioned delicately for rooms hung in peacock silks and courtyards of
fretted alabaster and burnished cedar.

He wanted to reply that he liked her, but, in prospect, that seemed
awkward, banal; and a lull in the conversation discouraged him.
Instead he examined his feelings in regard to this Pilar from Lima. It
was obvious that she had nothing in common with the women he had
dismissed from his present and future; she was more detached, even,
than La Clavel on the stage. And when, abruptly, she began to talk to
him, in an even flow of incomprehensible vowels and sibilants, he was
startled. Gaspar de Vaca spoke to her in a peremptory tone, and then
he addressed Charles, "She'll hardly say a word in a Christian tongue,
but, when it suits her, she will sail on in Chinese for a quarter of
an hour. It may be her sense of humor, it may be a prayer, perhaps
what she says, if it could be understood, would blast your brain, and
perhaps she merely has a stomach ache." But his remonstrance had the
effect designed; and after an imperturbable silence, she said again
that she liked Charles Abbott.

The General regretfully pushed back his chair, rose, and held out an
arm in formal gallantry, and Charles was left to follow with Pilar.
She lingered, while the others went on, and asked him if, tomorrow, he
would take her driving to Los Molinos. He hesitated, uncertain of the
wisdom of such a proceeding, when her hand again stole into his. What,
anyhow, in the face of that direct request, could he do but agree?
They must have, she proceeded, since he hadn't a private equipage, the
newest quitrin he could procure, and a calesero more brilliant than
any they should pass on the Calzada de la Reina. After all he would be
but keeping up the useful pretence of his worldliness; yet, looking
forward to the drive with her, an hour in the scented shade of the
Captain-General's gardens, he was aware of an anticipated pleasure.

The need for caution was reduced to a minimum, it shrank from
existence; naturally he wouldn't talk to Pilar de Lima of politics, he
could not be drawn into the mention of his friends, of any names
connected