"No, no; here. They 've got to have it here."

How hot it was! I could hardly lift my bound, heavy, aching legs.

I go about like a child in a strange place, without being able to tell what it means; or like one who has lost his memory and is constantly struggling to find some word, some sentence which will give the clue to the meaning of the life by which he is surrounded, something to satisfy the blank questioning. But these sights-the beggars, the children, the caged birds, the bone-boxes of nags on the street which hold just life enough to haul their burden these sights don't stir me any more. I look at them without love, without hate, without pity, as if they were passing shadows in a nightmare, but with what aversion! These shades, brothers of mine but I can think of nothing else. No hope. Each will go on just this way till he dies.

How hot it was! Fever. When I went to sleep I dreamed. Suddenly a word seemed to float near, as if I were drowning, and that word were a straw. I struggled for it mightily. At last it rushed toward me and exploded like a thunder-clap-"Cuidado!"

In my semi-delirium it nearly took my head off. I came to myself, crouched on an elbow, staring up. There was a hole in the ceiling! It was about as big as two hands laid together. I could see a faint light through it. Just as I looked, a shadow seemed to pass it, quickly, like a wraith, a fancy.

I shut my eyes. I was afraid to look. Perhaps it was a cat over a ventilator, which had been closed before. Again I looked. Now there was no hole.

I got on my feet, turned on every light. Not a mark on the ceiling but marks of age and of cobwebs too high to reach. Dawn was breaking. I padded the floor until my legs gave way, then sat in the window. A big monkey on the roof across the street padded, too. He padded the length of his chain, then sprang, and was jerked back. Back and forth he roved, sinuous tail curling and uncurling, and every time, at the end of his chain, he sprang, and was jerked back.

Later in the morning Doña Ana and I had a bit of conversation. I was in bed then.

"Is there a spy-hole in the ceiling of this room, Doña Ana?"

"Delirium, Miss Mary? You should. let me send for a doctor."

"It was right up there, Señora, over the bed. I saw a faint light."

"A reflection. That ceiling is the roof, Miss Mary, brick and plaster two feet thick."

"Yes? Somebody called through the hole, 'Cuidado!" That means beware, take care, does n't it? A ghost, do you suppose? Too bad it did n't stay. I might have asked it what it meant and if it lived up there."

"Nobody lives up there. There's a mirador on the roof, three little rooms, all empty, closed up. Nobody can get in from the outside unless they go up from here."

66

"Nobody' likes food."

"What do you mean, Miss Mary?" "Another dream, Señora. I dreamed I saw a tray of food carried up the other day."

Doña Ana walked to the window and began pulling dead leaves from the vines. I did not care what she did. I turned my head away. I heard her go back and forth with a pitcher of water; she had beautiful plants all over the house. By and by she was by the bed again.

"You are a very intelligent young woman, Miss Mary. I like you. I can see that in other circumstances you could be my very dear friend. You should think of what I told you-as long as you are my friend I am your friend. If you don't want to be that-and discreet, the door stands open. I never forgive. I'm going to be frank with you. There was an opening in the ceiling of this room long ago. There are conditions in a hot country-you could n't understand. It was necessary; the hole was closed up. I thought Don Pablo and I were all who knew of it. If it was opened last night, I know who did it - Quintilla. Little devil! she pries and spies and fears nothing. Would I have that child of Satan in the house? But what can I do? She amuses my son. He hires

her. One fool makes a hundred. If you will trust me, I will see that you are not molested again while you are here. I'll speak to my husband. Impudent servants! I'll send them all away."

It was easy to imagine it, the story of "long ago," Doña Ana's eye at the secret hole, spying with the scrutiny of hatred on the unhappy creature whom she meant to "squeeze," who must have once had my room. "When it was found out, when this woman could n't hide her disease any longer-" oh, yes.

I

And yet I admired Doña Ana. do still, with her calm and bitter selfpossession, her hair in damp ringlets over her smooth forehead like a child's. She was like a vigorous, conscious plant which sees its flowering head flawy, or like the author of a grand drama who sees it working out on the boards as she never intended. But still the play goes on, and she plays with it, new and hated lines, to another climax.

QUINTILLA disappeared for for several days. Pablino was in a state of excitement, sullen or angry, during which he told me one nice little lie. He had offered to show me a miniature, "painted by the best artist in South America," if I would call at his office. I called.

He beamed, he brought out catalogues. Did I want silk stockings, shoes, waists? Caramba! he would get them for me at wholesale prices. I declined. Was n't he going to show me the miniature?

He sat on his desk, crossed his legs jauntily, and smiled down at me. Five girls, sitting near at type-writers, keys silent, work stopped, bent their lusterless gaze our way, as if I were trying to take their cake.

"To tell the truth," said Pablino, "it's a portrait of Niña's mother, which I had painted to pique mama. Paid a thousand pesos for it. I hung it under her portrait in the sala—oh, rather good sport! She would n't go into the room. It was two weeks before I let papa take it down. It 's a beautiful picture, though."

I stood up, with a yawn behind my

hand. I was afraid to let him know how much I wanted to see it. Unfortunate, unhappy creature! And how powerful! Her very name could still evoke what passion, what consternation in the family! A sinister shade, she crept through the house.

"Well, I must go. I had hoped to see the painting."

He looked me straight in the eye, the frankest look.

"Oh, it's locked up in the safe, and my partner, who has the key, is away to-day."

I got out on the street. I was stunned. Such an unnecessary, stupid lie! Did he expect me to believe it? Was he showing his contempt for me or for my mind?

Months after, I mentioned the incident to an American of experience.

"Of course he expected you to believe it," said he. "Why, for ever so long we had been believing everything the Germans told us, had n't we?"

A DAY or two after, Pablino came home late to dinner. Without looking to right or to left, he passed around the table to where his father sat. He bent his head down.

"Papa, Papa, feel my head!"

Don Pablo was carving. He kept his hands extended over the roast, with carving-knife and fork, and looked up with his kind, inquiring smile. Pablino reached for the knife and sent it flying. He knelt, and held his father's hand on his head.

"Feel! feel! How hot!"

He trembled. His arms, hands, the muscles of his neck quivered as flesh does when it is afraid. Doña Ana continued serving, but a flicker on her lips as she glanced sidewise at her son seemed to say, "Baby!" Don Pablo spoke in German, then Pablino began to talk. He started on his knees, got to his feet, and ended by haranguing the whole table in a rush of German. Doña Ana explained dryly,

"My son says he saw a leper seized on the street to be taken to the leper island."

"Oh," cried Pablino, beginning all over again, this time in English, "oh, I sav her! I was ten feet away. Oh,

"You want to be careful," he said to me, and when I said nothing, he became terribly in earnest, features working, arms motioning. "Sure! You don't know who they are! Keep in the middle of the street! She sat down here on the street in a doorway, you must have seen her,—big head like a man, big stick. She'd strike if you came near. Around her head and shoulders, bunched, was an old striped rag-an old flag. Sure, an American flag. If it had been a German flag or a Spanish flag, she 'd have been arrested long ago, put in prison. Then she'd have been found out. Americans don't care."

"Oh, there's no fear for contagion," said Don Pablo, soothing his son.

Pablino went off, had a bath, and presently reappeared in a bath-robe, roaming up and down the hall, still in intense excitement. His father went to him. The two men kissed each other on the mouth like school-girls, then with arms about each other's waists they paced the hall, talking, talking. Once I caught them examining me with a contemplative scrutiny, instantly shifted.

As I rose from the table, Pablino stepped up. He threw back his shoulders and struck himself a good blow on the chest.

"Hit me! Hit hard!"
"Why should I hit you?

He seized my hand and struck himself again. "Hit! hit hard!" It was like striking steel plate.

"Strong, eh? And natural. It 's natural. I never did crease my strength. strong, perfectly well. was the heat."

anything to inI'm naturally Father says it

"Come, Miss Mary," called Doña Ana. "Come, I want to show you a flower."

An end of the balcony off the sala, which faced the ocean, was full of her roses. What a perfume! Don Pablo came out, too, with a pancake sneaked from the table in his hand,

eating it like a boy while he jounced Niña on his back. Her tiny hands clutched his neck. They laughed together.

"It was the heat," explained Don Pablo. "He was out two hours-two hours!-in the sun in the middle of the day. Ah, you can't do so here. You must take a siesta. Me-I don't feel hot. But every day after lunch I lie down, if it's just to close my eyes. Then all right. Work all the time, no. Play, dance." He began a fantastic two-step, bowing and bending. "We all go to the casino ball Friday. Miss Mary, too!" He shook his finger at me. finger at me. "Oh, interesting! Only the best people. It 's an exclusive cloob. And every lady behind a fan-b-z-z-z. Sounds like a lot of bees."

"I was going to ask her," said Pablino.

His father laughed. His whole face lit up as a speaker's does when he sways his audience. Ah, he was an artist, and a mighty clever afterdinner speaker, so I heard. He finished his pancake.

"I tell you a story. In the village where my father was born there lived a pastor who was very fond of pancakes; and especially the border of the pancake he thought was simply divine. One day he was explaining the love of Unser Gott, and says he, 'It is so sweet- So sweet So sweet as the border of a pancake.' Ha! ha!"

A GARDEN lay on three sides of the casino building. In the moonlight it seemed dark, thick, tall like a jungle, with narrow paths jutting here and there. Flowers lifted strange, wide faces, pale in the moon-rays, as if they, too, were enameled like the ladies' faces behind fans. Deep in the foliage dark flowers crouched, and there were glimpses of shining dresses, with black shadows alongside.

Pablino was showing me the place. He stopped in the open where a treefern raised its stem ten feet above a little marble pool, then bursting at the top like a fountain, sent its fronds whirling up, to bend and curve to the ground and the white pool.

It was just at the edge of the gar

den, which was inclosed by an iron fence. On the other side lay a long, low grassy hill, which resembled a huge, recumbent animal-earth, warm, breathing, asleep. Over the hill was the ocean, sleeping, too. Outside the garden were lots of little dark, whitebacked humans - Doña Ana's "low class." They were listening to the music, and as they listened, they wound in an ellipsis, round and round, past the casino and back again in a slow, sticky movement, as though stirred with a big spoon. They could see the whole show, too - the whirling and twirling, eating and drinking of the exclusive club. There were three times as many taking the crumbs as those who sat at the table. "Romantic!" said Pablino, waving an arm around.

In a moment I perceived that he had selected this spot for himself to be romantic in-German romantic. He began to smile mysteriously and to come closer, as if he had a pleasant surprise for me.

"I love that ribbon around your hair," said he, "blue-blue, like your eyes." He leaned slowly toward it, with his lips puckered.

I backed into the shrubbery. "Don't do that! Americans don't like that sort of thing."

"Americans? But-you are woman, nicht wahr?"

I did not know whether to admire his impudence or his assurance.

"Take me back to your mother," I said crossly. "I think you are acting very foolishly."

He stepped back, still with the curious smile trembling under his mustache, and posed himself in front of the tree-fern, his hand on his heart. He was in black broadcloth evening clothes, rings on his fingers, and a fob like a door-knob on the front of his waistcoat. The tree-fern did not now resemble a bursting fountain. Its fronds curled about the man like petals of a great flower. He was its heartthe worm-eaten heart of tropic beauty.

"After mature deliberation," he said, "I have decided to make you an offer of marriage. I have consulted with my father, and he agrees with me that

it is a wise thing for me to do. You are good family. My father and mother both like you. And after we are married, we 'll live in Washington or New York; I'm tired of Latin America. You have an uncle in the Senate-" "How do you know?"

"Why, my dear girl, naturally one would make inquiries. Twice one does not make a marriage mistake. And after we are married-"

"But we are not going to be married."

His jaw dropped. He bent toward me, pointed his forefinger at himself, and said rapidly with the utmost amazement:

"But you

don't know who I am,

hein?" "But I don't care who you are." "But you don't know who I am, hein?"

"And I don't care who you are." "But you don't know who I am!" His finger fairly bored into his chest. "But I know who you were the husband of Belen."

"What difference does that make?" He seized my wrist-the marks of his fingers were there the next day-and ground his teeth in my face. "If I thought-" Suddenly, he threw my hand down and puffed out his chest. "Ha! ha! Wohl, I did n't think there was a woman in the world would refuse me."

As we stood, narrowly observing each other, I heard a rustle behind me, and a stone whizzed neatly past my ear. I spun about. Some one hidden in the shrubbery by the fence began to laugh, low, spiteful laughter. Other voices near by took it up. I could imagine all those little people on the hill giving voice to it-woe and bitterness, sin and mockery, as they wound in their ellipsis and looked across the fence..

The noise stopped with the suddenness of a whip-crack. Two little policemen in high helmets popped out there. I had a glimpse of something light, bent, and skimming the hill, then the white-backs ringed the policemen in excited circles, and it ended. A sleeping creature had stirred in his sleep; that was all.

I looked for Pablino, and saw his back, very stiff, just disappearing around a bend in the path. He had dropped me like a hot cake.

TWENTY minutes later I was climbing the stairs to the Dove casa, alone, with mixed emotions. Better dark corners and specters alone than see any of the Doves again that night. In the morning I would hunt another boardingplace. Don Pablo once said to me, "It must always be looked for, the motive. So a German says, the motive; what motive?"

you

I thought I saw the motive here. "We'll live in Washington have an uncle in the Senate." No wonder they had been kind.

No, I saw nothing. Nothing real. The motive of the Dove casa was hunger of a family to develop itself and to climax in the son. It had no regard for any other family, and so it had become inhuman and monstrous.

When I came to the head of the stairs the Dove door was ajar and moving slightly, as though some one had just passed through. I stood by the door, pushing it gingerly, to see who was behind. I heard some one panting when a brown hand slid out, gripped my arm, and drew me in. The door shut noiselessly.

The lights were turned off in the house, but moonlight came bright in a window. I could see. It was Quintilla. She leaned against the door, steaming with sweat, panting, choking, and trying to muffle the sound in her skirt. And all the time she watched me with hostility.

One sleeve was torn off her shoulder, and her hair had come loose, and seemed to lift itself from her forehead and float around her in a multitude of dark little waves. She pulled herself together with unexpected suddenness. Throwing her head up high and looking me straight in the eyes, both hands pressed against her bosom, she whispered with indescribable passion:

"Don Pablino es mio!"

Her hand slipped up the door and shot the bolt. She stooped, ripped my slippers off my feet, and began pull

ing me along the hall in furious, but stealthy, haste.

"Chist! Vamos! pronto! para Doña Belen."

To Doña Belen! the dead Belen.

I would have fallen over the feet of a servant asleep on the floor by the kitchen door if Quintilla had not guided me around and started me up the ladder. I went up without a thought of propriety or impropriety or threats. I went up as if I were carried in a balloon.

Quintilla shut the trap-door behind It was pitch-dark until she turned on a light.

us.

A little room, hot, close, and empty, with a peculiar sepulchral smell in which chloride of lime could be detected. I looked all around. There was a door, with a heavy, padlocked bar across, which must have led to the room above mine. And there was a window, bricked up on the outside; nothing else.

Quintilla had crouched down by the side wall. Suddenly a light jumped from another trap-door there, close to the floor. I was looking along the ceiling of a room on the floor below. Quintilla pushed me roughly to the little door.

"Ea, ea! mira! la esposa de Don Pablino! Que hermosa!"

I looked down into the room, and I saw the woman, and she was a leper. She sat on the bed, her knees drawn up, and her arms, one of which had lost semblance of an arm, clasped around them. Her face turned up to the opening. Some sort of whitish cowl was on her head,—she wore nothing else but a grimy shift, which hardly covered her knees, and from out that cowl her ashen face looked up, unblinking, unstartled as if she never could be startled again.

I could hardly withstand the look. I trembled. I stood motionless, contemplating the dismal fate of the woman to its reliefless end. I noted details: an image of the Virgin over the bed, a window nailed up half its height, a tray with remnants of food partly covered with a rag, a rope-andpulley dumb-waiter arrangement under the trap-door, odor of a den.