hite, would be a feeder of chickens with
such barley as this! Ah! come along!"

The arrival of the Doctor and the Comandante's secretary created another
diversion, and the pairing off of the two couples indicated by Dona
Isabel for a stroll in the garden, which was now beginning to recover
from the still heat of mid-day. This left Don Ramon and Mrs. Brimmer
alone in the corridor; Mrs. Brimmer's indefinite languor, generally
accepted as some vague aristocratic condition of mind and body, not
permitting her to join them.

There was a moment of dangerous silence; the voices of the young people
were growing fainter in the distance. Mrs. Brimmer's eyes, in the shadow
of her fan, were becoming faintly phosphorescent. Don Ramon's melancholy
face, which had grown graver in the last few moments, approached nearer
to her own.

"You are unhappy, Dona Barbara. The coming of this young cavalier, your
countryman, revives your anxiety for your home. You are thinking of this
husband who comes not. Is it not so?"

"I am thinking," said Mrs. Brimmer, with a sudden revulsion of solid
Boston middle-class propriety, shown as much in the dry New England
asperity of voice that stung even through her drawling of the Castilian
speech, as in anything she said,--"I am thinking that, unless Mr.
Brimmer comes soon, I and Miss Chubb shall have to abandon the
hospitality of your house, Don Ramon. Without looking upon myself as a
widow, or as indefinitely separated from Mr. Brimmer, the few words let
fall by Mr. Brace show me what might be the feelings of my countrymen
on the subject. However charming and considerate your hospitality has
been--and I do not deny that it has been MOST grateful to ME--I feel
I cannot continue to accept it in those equivocal circumstances. I
am speaking to a gentleman who, with the instincts and chivalrous
obligations of his order, must sympathize with my own delicacy in coming
to this conclusion, and who will not take advantage of my confession
that I do it with pain."

She spoke with a dry alacrity and precision so unlike her usual languor
and the suggestions of the costume, and even the fan she still kept
shading her faintly glowing eyes, that the man before her was more
troubled by her manner than her words, which he had but imperfectly
understood.

"You will leave here--this house?" he stammered.

"It is necessary," she returned.

"But you shall listen to me first!" he said hurriedly. "Hear me, Dona
Barbar