San Francisco broker, leaning from the next
balcony to mine. But my attention was just then preoccupied by the face
and figure, which seemed familiar to me, of a woman who was alighting
from the brake.

"Who is that?" I asked; "the straight slim woman in gray, with the white
veil twisted round her felt hat?"

"Mrs. Saltillo," he answered; "wife of 'El Bolero' Saltillo, don't you
know. Mighty pretty woman, if she is a little stiffish and set up."

Then I had not been mistaken! "Is Enriquez--is her husband--here?" I
asked quickly.

The man laughed. "I reckon not. This is the place for other people's
husbands, don't you know."

Alas! I DID know; and as there flashed upon me all the miserable
scandals and gossip connected with this reckless, frivolous caravansary,
I felt like resenting his suggestion. But my companion's next words were
more significant:--

"Besides, if what they say is true, Saltillo wouldn't be very popular
here."

"I don't understand," I said quickly.

"Why, after all that row he had with the El Bolero Company."

"I never heard of any row," I said, in astonishment.

The broker laughed incredulously. "Come! and YOU a newspaper man! Well,
maybe they DID try to hush it up, and keep it out of the papers, on
account of the stock. But it seems he got up a reg'lar shindy with the
board, one day; called 'em thieves and swindlers, and allowed he was
disgracing himself as a Spanish hidalgo by having anything to do with
'em. Talked, they say, about Charles V. of Spain, or some other royal
galoot, giving his ancestors the land in trust! Clean off his head,
I reckon. Then shunted himself off the company, and sold out. You can
guess he wouldn't be very popular around here, with Jim Bestley, there,"
pointing to the capitalist who had driven the brake, "who used to be on
the board with him. No, sir. He was either lying low for something, or
was off his head. Think of his throwing up a place like that!"

"Nonsense!" I said indignantly. "He is mercurial, and has the quick
impulsiveness of his race, but I believe him as sane as any who sat with
him on the board. There must be some mistake, or you haven't got the
whole story." Nevertheless, I did not care to discuss an old friend
with a mere acquaintance, and I felt secretly puzzled to account for his
conduct, in the face of his previous cleverness in manipulating the El
Bolero, and the undoubted fascination he had previously exercised over
the stockholders. Th