at
least understand that, how generous you are. If you are unfamiliar
with Cuba perhaps you will let me inform you. I came to Havana, you
see, for my lungs. They were bad, and now they are good; and that is
my history here. There is no hole in them because I have been careful
to avoid the troubles on the street; and the way to miss them is not
to give them an admission. The reason I am here with you is because
you seemed to me, in yourself, so far away from all that. Your mind
might be in China." He went on to make clear to her his distrust of
women. "But you are different; you are like a statue that has come to
life, a very lovely statue. What you really are doesn't matter, I
don't care, I shall never know. But a water lily--that is enough."

"Are you wise or no deeper than this?" she asked, indicating the
shallow fountain. "But don't answer; how, as you say, can it affect
us? You are you and I am I. We might even love each other with no
more; that would be best--it is the more that spoils love."

"What do you know about that?"

But, relapsing into immobility, she ignored his question. Beyond doubt
his interest in her had increased; it was an attraction without name,
yet none the less potent. Seated close beside him she still seemed to
be fashioned from a vital material other than flesh and blood; she was
like a creation of sheer magic ... for what end? They rose, leaving
the Botanical Gardens, the spotted orchids and air plants and
oleanders, for the Quinta. There they passed into a walk completely
arched over with the bushes of the Mar Pacifico, the rose of the
Pacific, a verdurous tunnel of leaves and broad fragrant pink blooms,
with a farther glimpse of a cascade over mossy rocks.

The stream entered a canal, holding some gaily painted and cushioned
row boats, and a green-gold flotilla of Mandarin ducks. There were
aviaries of doves, about which strollers were gathered, and a distant
somnolent military guard. It was the first time for weeks that Charles
had been consciously relaxed, submerged in an unguarded pleasure of
being. Pilar might be honest about de Vaca and his purpose, or she
might be covering something infinitely more cunning. It would bring
her nothing! The very simplicity of his relationship with her was a
complete protection; he had no impulse to be serious, nothing in his
conversation to guard.

Pilar seemed singularly young here, engaged in staring at and
fingering the flowers, reading the si