thing in
Mr. Smithson's manner to indicate that the Spaniard was an unwelcome
guest. On the contrary, Smithson received him with a cordiality which in
a man of naturally reserved manner seemed almost rapture. The curtain
fell, and he presented Don Gomez to Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia;
whereupon dear Georgie began to gush, after her wont, and to ask a good
many questions in a manner that was too girlish to seem impertinent.

'How perfectly you speak English!' she exclaimed. 'You must have lived
in England a good deal.'

'On the contrary, it is my misfortune to have, lived here very little,
but I have known a good many English and Americans in Cuba and in
Paris.'

'In Cuba! Do you really come from Cuba? I have always fancied that Cuba
must be an altogether charming place to live in--like Biarritz or Pau,
don't you know, only further away. Do please tell me where it is, and
what kind of a place.'

Geographically, Lady Kirkbank's mind was a blank. It was quite a
revelation to her to find that Cuba was an island.

'It must be a lovely spot!' exclaimed the fervid creature. 'Let me see,
now, what do we get from Cuba?--cigars--and--and tobacco. I suppose in
Cuba everybody smokes?'

'Men, women, and children.'

'How delicious! Would that I were a Cuban! And the natives, are they
nice?'

'There are no aborigines. The Indians whom Columbus found soon perished
off the face of the island. European civilisation generally has that
effect. But one of our most benevolent captain-generals provided us with
an imported population of niggers.'

'How delightful. I have always longed to live among a slave population,
dear submissive black things dressed in coral necklaces and feathers,
instead of the horrid over-fed wretches we have to wait upon us. And if
the aborigines were not wanted it was just as well for them to die out,
don't you know,' prattled Lady Kirkbank.

'It was very accommodating of them, no doubt. Yet we could employ half a
million of them, if we had them, in draining our swamps. Agriculture
suffered by the loss of Indian labour.'

'I suppose they were like the creatures in Pizarro, poor dear yellow
things with brass bracelets,' said Lady Kirkbank. 'I remember seeing
Macready as Rolla when I was quite a little thing.'

And now the curtain rose for the last act.

'Do you care about staying for the end?' asked Mr. Smithson of Lesbia.
'It will make us rather late at the Orleans.'

'Never mind how late we are,