er
sex.

There were two engineers, one British, one American, both very
intelligent-looking, both inclined to taciturnity, as is often the case
in men of their profession. They walked a good deal, and smoked
nut-brown, evil-smelling pipes, and stared unblinkingly across the
water.

There were Argentines--whole families of them--Brazilians, too. The
fat, bejeweled Brazilian men eyed Emma McChesney with open approval,
even talked to her, leering objectionably. Emma McChesney refused to
be annoyed. Her ten years on the road served her in good stead now.

But most absorbing of all to Emma McChesney, watching quietly over her
book or magazine, was a tall, erect, white-bearded Argentine who, with
his family, occupied chairs near hers. His name had struck her with
the sound of familiarity when she read it on the passenger list. She
had asked the deck-steward to point out the name's owner. "Pages," she
repeated to herself, worriedly, "Pages? P----" Suddenly she knew.
Pages y Hernandez, the owner of the great Buenos Aires shop--a shop
finer than those of Paris. And this was Pages! All the Featherloom
instinct in Emma McChesney came to the surface and stayed there,
seething.

That was the morning of the second day out. By afternoon, she had
bribed and maneuvered so that her deck chair was next that of the
Pages-family flock of chairs. Senor Pages reminded her of one of those
dashing, white-haired, distinguished-looking men whose likeness graces
the cover of a box of your favorite cigars.

General Something-or-other-ending-in-z he should have been, with a
revolutionary background. He dressed somberly in black, like most of
the other Argentine men on board. There was Senora Pages, very fat,
very indolent, very blank, much given to pink satin and diamonds at
dinner. Senorita Pages, over-powdered, overfrizzed, marvelously
gowned, with overplumpness just a few years away, sat quietly by Senora
Pages' side, but her darting, flashing, restless eyes were never still.
The son (Emma heard them call him Pepe) was barely eighteen, she
thought, but quite a man of the world, with his cigarettes, his drinks,
his bold eyes. She looked at his sallow, pimpled skin, his lean, brown
hands, his lack-luster eyes, and she thought of Jock and was happy.

Mrs. McChesney knew that she might visit the magnificent Buenos Aires
shop of Pages y Hernandez day after day for months without ever
obtaining a glimpse of either Pages or Hernan