d
more insistent and caressing. At last he ventured a slight laugh.

"No, really. You must forgive me. One must be serious sometimes."
He paused. She turned her head a little; her blue eyes glided slowly
towards him, slightly upwards, mollified and questioning.

"You can't think I am serious when I call Montero a gran' bestia
every second day in the Porvenir? That is not a serious occupation. No
occupation is serious, not even when a bullet through the heart is the
penalty of failure!"

Her hand closed firmly on her fan.

"Some reason, you understand, I mean some sense, may creep into
thinking; some glimpse of truth. I mean some effective truth, for which
there is no room in politics or journalism. I happen to have said what I
thought. And you are angry! If you do me the kindness to think a little
you will see that I spoke like a patriot."

She opened her red lips for the first time, not unkindly.

"Yes, but you never see the aim. Men must be used as they are. I suppose
nobody is really disinterested, unless, perhaps, you, Don Martin."

"God forbid! It's the last thing I should like you to believe of me." He
spoke lightly, and paused.

She began to fan herself with a slow movement without raising her hand.
After a time he whispered passionately--

"Antonia!"

She smiled, and extended her hand after the English manner towards
Charles Gould, who was bowing before her; while Decoud, with his
elbows spread on the back of the sofa, dropped his eyes and murmured,
"Bonjour."

The Senor Administrador of the San Tome mine bent over his wife for
a moment. They exchanged a few words, of which only the phrase, "The
greatest enthusiasm," pronounced by Mrs. Gould, could be heard.

"Yes," Decoud began in a murmur. "Even he!"

"This is sheer calumny," said Antonia, not very severely.

"You just ask him to throw his mine into the melting-pot for the great
cause," Decoud whispered.

Don Jose had raised his voice. He rubbed his hands cheerily. The
excellent aspect of the troops and the great quantity of new deadly
rifles on the shoulders of those brave men seemed to fill him with an
ecstatic confidence.

Charles Gould, very tall and thin before his chair, listened, but
nothing could be discovered in his face except a kind and deferential
attention.

Meantime, Antonia had risen, and, crossing the room, stood looking out
of one of the three long windows giving on the street. Decoud followed
her. The window was thrown