第55章

It would have been difficult for a stranger at a first glance to discover the nationality of the ladies.Mrs.Brimmer and her friend Miss Chubb had entirely succumbed to the extreme dishabille of the Spanish toilet--not without a certain languid grace on the part of Mrs.Brimmer, whose easy contour lent itself to the stayless bodice; or a certain bashful, youthful naivete on the part of Miss Chubb, the rounded dazzling whiteness of whose neck and shoulders half pleased and half frightened her in her low, white, plain camisa--under the lace mantilla.

"It is SUCH a pleasure to see you again, Mr.Brace," said Mrs.

Brimmer, languidly observing the young man through the sticks of her fan; "I was telling Don Ramon that I feared Dona Ursula had frightened you away.I told him that your experience of American society might have caused you to misinterpret the habitual reserve of the Castilian," she continued with the air of being already an alien of her own country, "and I should be only too happy to undertake the chaperoning of both these young ladies in their social relations with our friends.And how is dear Mr.Banks? and Mr.Crosby? whom I so seldom see now.I suppose, however, business has its superior attractions."But Don Ramon, with impulsive gallantry, would not--nay, COULD not--for a moment tolerate a heresy so alarming.It was simply wildly impossible.For why? In the presence of Dona Barbara--it exists not in the heart of man!

"YOU cannot, of course, conceive it, Don Ramon," said Mrs.Brimmer, with an air of gentle suffering; "but I fear it is sadly true of the American gentlemen.They become too absorbed in their business.They forget their duty to our sex in their selfish devotion to affairs in which we are debarred from joining them, and yet they wonder that we prefer the society of men who are removed by birth, tradition, and position from this degrading kind of selfishness.""But that was scarcely true of your own husband.HE was not only a successful man in business, but we can see that he was equally successful in his relations to at least one of the fastidious sex,"said Brace, maliciously glancing at Don Ramon.

Mrs.Brimmer received the innuendo with invulnerable simplicity.

"Mr.Brimmer is, I am happy to say, NOT a business man.He entered into certain contracts having more or less of a political complexion, and carrying with them the genius but not the material results of trade.That he is not a business man--and a successful one--my position here at the present time is a sufficient proof,"she said triumphantly."And I must also protest," she added, with a faint sigh, "against Mr.Brimmer being spoken of in the past tense by anybody.It is painfully premature and ominous!"She drew her mantilla across her shoulders with an expression of shocked sensitiveness which completed the humiliation of Brace and the subjugation of Don Ramon.But, unlike most of her sex, she was wise in the moment of victory.She cast a glance over her fan at Brace, and turned languidly to Dona Isabel.

"Mr.Brace must surely want some refreshment after his long ride.

Why don't you seize this opportunity to show him the garden and let him select for himself the herbs he requires for that dreadful American drink; Miss Chubb and your sister will remain with me to receive the Comandante's secretary and the Doctor when they come.""She's more than my match," whispered Brace to Dona Isabel, as they left the corridor together."I give in.I don't understand her:

she frightens me."

"That is of your conscience! It is that you would understand the Dona Leonor--your dear Miss Keene--better! Ah! silence, imbecile!

this Dona Barbara is even as thou art--a talking parrot.She will have that the Comandante's secretary, Manuel, shall marry Mees Chubb, and that the Doctor shall marry my sister.But she knows not that Manuel--listen so that you shall get sick at your heart and swallow your moustachio!--that Manuel loves the beautiful Leonor, and that Leonor loves not him, but Don Diego; and that my sister loathes the little Doctor.And this Dona Barbara, that makes your liver white, 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.