I would shoot you with my own hand. Drop this Chinese
water lily; their stems are always in the mud."

"On the contrary, you must see her," Charles Abbott insisted. "I've
explained that she can't hurt us; and we may get something floated the
other way." He was aware of an indefinable resentment at Andres'
attitude: his love for him was all that prevented the acerbity of a
voiced irritation.

* * * * *

Yet, when the regimental band was leaving to the diminishing strains
of its quickstep, Andres joined Charles and Pilar--who had left her
quitrin--strolling through the Plaza. As usual she said practically
nothing; but, in the gloom, she was specially potent, like a
fascinating and ironic idol to innocence; and Charles Abbott was
pleased by Andres' instant attention. Pilar was reluctant, now, to
return to the carriage, and she lingered between the men, who, in
turn, gazed down addressing remarks to the smooth blackness of her
hair or to the immobile whiteness of her face. Charles dropped behind,
to light a cigar, and when he came up to them again he had the
illusive sense of a rapid speech stopped at his approach. Andres
Escobar's countenance was lowered, his brow drawn together ... it had
been Pilar de Lima, surprisingly, who had talked. Charles recalled the
manner in which her low, even voice flowed from scarcely moving lips,
with never a shadow of emotion, of animation, across her unstirred
flattened features.

Some Cubans gathered about the table when, later, they were eating
ices; and, gaining Pilar's consent, he left with the indispensable
polite regrets and bows. He was vaguely and thoroughly disturbed,
uneasy, as though a grain of poison had entered him and were
circulating through all his being. It was a condition he was
unfamiliar with, disagreeable in the extreme; and one which he
determined to stamp out. It hadn't existed in his contact with Pilar
until the appearance of Andres; yes, it came about from the
conjunction of the girl, Andres and himself; spilled into the clarity
of their companionship, Andres and his, her influence had already
darkened and slightly embittered it ... had affected it, Charles
added; she was powerless to touch him in the future; he put her
resolutely, completely, from his thoughts.

He was a little appalled at the suddenness with which the poison had
tainted him, infecting every quality of superiority, of detachment, of
reasoning, he possessed. Wh