she should be in London for a week or two, as a
bird of passage, flitting southwards. He began to teach Lesbia Spanish,
a language for which she had taken a sudden fancy; and it is curious
what tender accents, what hidden meanings even a grammar can take from
such a teacher. Spanish came easily enough to a learner who had been
thoroughly drilled in French and Italian, and who had been taught the
rudiments of Latin; so by the end of a lesson, which went on at
intervals all day, the pupil was able to lisp a passage of Don Quixote
in the sweetest Castilian, very sweet to the ear of Don Gomez--a kind of
baby language, precious as the first half-formed syllables of infancy to
mothers.

Montesma had nothing to do but to amuse himself and his companions all
day in the saloon, amidst odours of roses and peaches, in a shadowy
coolness made by striped silken blinds; but Mr. Smithson was not so much
his own master. That innumerable company of friends which are the
portion of the rich man given to hospitality would not let the owner of
the _Cayman_ go scot-free.

At a place like Cowes, on the eve of the regatta week, the freelances of
society expect to find entertainment; and Mr. Smithson had to maintain
his character for princely hospitalities at the sacrifice of his
feelings as a lover. Every ripple of Lesbia's silvery laughter, every
deep tone of Montesma's voice, from the cabin below, sent a pang to his
jealous soul; and yet he had to smile, and to order more champagne cup,
and to be lavish of his best cigars, albeit insisting that his friends
should smoke their cigars in the bows well to leeward, so that no foul
breathings of tobacco should pollute his Cleopatra galley.

Cleopatra was very happy meanwhile, sublimely indifferent even to the
odours of tobacco. She had her Antony at her feet, looking up at her,
as she recited her lesson, with darkly luminous eyes, obviously
worshipping her, obviously intent on winning her without counting the
cost. When had a Montesma ever counted the cost to himself or
others--the cost in gold, in honour, in human life? The records of Cuba
in the palmy days of the slave trade would tell how lightly they held
the last; and for honour, well, the private hells of island and main
could tell their tale of specially printed playing cards, in which the
swords or stars on the back of each card had a secret language of their
own, and were as finger-posts for the initiated player.

Mr. Smithson had b