. And every now and
again the whole scene grew dim as though it were a phantasmagoria, and
about to dissolve, when the smoke from Gruenbaum's cigar floated and hung
in the still air.

"And I discovered, too, that I had no words in which to formulate the
peculiar impressions this scene made upon me. I could find no adequate
remark! The girl at my side, reaching out absently for the glasses,
made no sign that this scene going on half a mile away was at all
strange to her. For all one could gather, Captain Macedoine's daughter
was accustomed to see her father submitting passively to the onslaughts
of foreign concessionaires every day in the week. I gazed at her as she
stood there by the awning-stanchion looking at her magnificent parent,
and it was suddenly borne in upon me that it is a miracle we ever learn
anything about each other at all in this world. There is nothing so
inscrutable as an ordinary human being, I am convinced, and I have been
watching them for thirty years. What we know and can tell, even the
acutest of us, is no more than the postmark on a letter. What's
inside--ah, if we only knew. What? Absurd? By no means. I believe
married people do occasionally accomplish it in a small way. I mean I
believe they attain to a fairly complete comprehension of each other's
souls. But as to whether the game is worth the candle they never
divulge....

"Certainly Artemisia did not at that moment. She left me, as every woman
I have ever met has left me, groping. She sighed softly and returned the
glasses, remarking again, 'Yes, there's Father,' and bade me good-night
without a word of explanation. Mind, I don't say I had any right to such
a word. I don't even feel sure she understood anything at all about her
father's position on that island. The bare fact remains that I expected
some explanation simply because I credited her with a character light
yet strong, and capable of supporting the weight of her father's
confidence.

"For observe; if this girl was ignorant of everything, if she came out
here a mere child agape with curiosity, then Macedoine must have been
that extremely rare phenomenon, a completely lonely man. And I was not
prepared to admit the possibility of such an existence for him. He was
one of those men who can live, no doubt, without friendship, but who
must have their audience. So much at least I knew of him in the old days
in the Maracaibo Line, when he would sit near us in Fabacher's on Royal
Stree