may work more mischief
than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very
planet we live on, some day!"

"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly--"But it wouldn't be missed!
Come,--I'll walk with you half way down the hill."

He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a shield against the blazing sun,
for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent solemnly
unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him on occasion
as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than
that afforded by the two men,--the conventionally clothed,
stiff-jointed Washington senator, and the fine, easy supple figure of
his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them descend the
hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens, criticised their
appearance in her own special way.

"Poof!" she said to herself, snapping her fingers in air--"He is so
ugly!--that one man--so dry and yellow and old! But the other--he is a
god!"

And she snapped her fingers again,--then kissed them towards the object
of her adoration,--an object as unconscious and indifferent as any
senseless idol ever worshipped by blind devotees.

CHAPTER XIII

On his return to the Plaza Mr. Sam Gwent tried to get some conversation
with Manella, but found it difficult. She did not wait on the visitors
in the dining-room, and Gwent imagined he knew the reason why. Her
beauty was of too brilliant and riante a type to escape the notice and
admiration of men, whose open attentions were likely to be embarrassing
to her, and annoying to her employers. She was therefore kept very much
out of the way, serving on the upper floors, and was only seen flitting
up and down the staircase or passing through the various corridors and
balconies. However, when evening fell and its dark, still heat made
even the hotel lounge, cooled as it was by a fountain in full play,
almost unbearable, Gwent, strolling forth into the garden, found her
there standing near a thick hedge of myrtle which exhaled a heavy scent
as if every leaf were being crushed between invisible fingers. She
looked up as she saw him approaching and smiled.

"You found your friend well?" she said.

"Very well, indeed!" replied Gwent, promptly--"In fact, I never knew he
was ill!"

Manella gave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of
her many fascinating gestures.

"He is not ill"--she said--"He only pretends! That is all! He has some
reason