to a foreign envoy, who, in a listless
undertone, had been talking to him fitfully of hunting and shooting. The
well-nourished, pale face, with an eyeglass and drooping yellow moustache, made
the Señor Administrador appear by contrast twice as sunbaked, more flaming red,
a hundred times more intensely and silently alive. Don José Avellanos touched
elbows with the other foreign diplomat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful,
self-confident demeanour, and a touch of reserve. All etiquette being laid aside
on the occasion. General Montero was the only one there in full uniform, so
stiff with embroideries in front that his broad chest seemed protected by a
cuirass of gold. Sir John at the beginning had got away from high places for the
sake of sitting near Mrs. Gould.
    The great financier was trying to express to her his grateful sense of her
hospitality and of his obligation to her husband's enormous influence in this
part of the country, when she interrupted him by a low »Hush!« The President was
going to make an informal pronouncement.
    The Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a few words, evidently
deeply felt, and meant perhaps mostly for Avellanos - his old friend - as to the
necessity of unremitting effort to secure the lasting welfare of the country
emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into a period of peace and material
prosperity.
    Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly mournful voice, looking at
this rotund, dark, spectacled face, at the short body, obese to the point of
infirmity, thought that this man of delicate and melancholy mind, physically
almost a cripple, coming out of his retirement into a dangerous strife at the
call of his fellows, had the right to speak with the authority of his
self-sacrifice. And yet she was made uneasy. He was more pathetic than
promising; this first civilian Chief of the State Costaguana had ever known,
pronouncing, glass in hand, his simple watchwords of honesty, peace, respect for
law, political good faith abroad and at home - the safeguards of national
honour.
    He sat down. During the respectful, appreciative buzz of voices that
followed the speech, General Montero raised a pair of heavy, drooping eyelids
and rolled his eyes with a sort of uneasy dullness from face to face. The
military backwoods hero of the party, though secretly impressed by the sudden
novelties and splendours of his position (he had never been on board a ship
before, and had hardly ever seen the sea except from a distance), understood by
a sort of instinct the