ight
faces, cigars held seriously in serious mouths. Charles soon saw that
Andres and Pilar de Lima had not yet arrived. As he leaned forward
over the railing of the box, Gaspar Arco de Vaca, sardonic and
observing, glanced up and saluted with his exaggerated courtesy. He
disappeared, there was a knock at the closed door behind Charles, and
de Vaca entered.

There was a general standing acknowledgement of his appearance; the
visor of his dress cap was touched for every man present, and he took
a vacated chair at Charles' side. "You weren't attracted to my white
absinthe," he said easily. On the contrary, Charles replied, he had
liked Pilar very well, although she had annoyed him by foolish tales
of a Spanish interest in him.

"She is, of course, an agent," de Vaca admitted indifferently. "We
almost have to keep her in a cage, like a leopard from Tartary. She
has killed three officers of high rank; although we do not prefer her
as an assassin. She is valuable as a drop of acid, here, there; and
extraordinary individuals often rave about her. We'll have to garrotte
her some time, and that will be a pity."

There was a flash of color below, of carmine and golden orange, and
Charles recognized Pilar wrapped, from her narrow shoulders to her
delicate ankles, in the manton. Andres Escobar, with a protruding lip
and sullen eyes, was at her side. Suddenly de Vaca utterly astounded
Charles; with a warning pressure of his hand he spoke at the younger
man's ear:

"I am leaving at once for Madrid, a promotion has fortunately lifted
me from this stinking black intrigue, and I have a memory ... from the
sala de Armas, the echo of a sufficiently spirited compliment. As I
say, I am off; what is necessary to you is necessary--a death in
Havana or a long life at home. Where I am concerned you have bought
your right to either. You cannot swing the balance against Spain. And
I have this for you to consider. Your friend, Escobar, has reached the
end of his journey. It will accomplish nothing to inform him; he is
not to walk from the theatre. Very well--if you wish to hatch your
seditious wren's eggs tomorrow, if you wish to wake tomorrow at all,
stay away from him. Anything else will do no good except, perhaps, for
us."

Charles Abbott sat with a mechanical gaze on the floor covered with
revolving figures. He realized instantly that Gaspar Arco de Vaca had
been truthful. The evidence of that lay in the logic of his words, the
ring o