gh at it. It is our law. We make it for
ourselves. I am Manuel de Jesus Patino. Remember that name. It will be
written some day in history. There are revolutions in Ecuador. We call
them elections. It is a good joke is it not?--what you call a pun?

John Harned was an American. I met him first at the Tivoli hotel in
Panama. He had much money--this I have heard. He was going to Lima,
but he met Maria Valenzuela in the Tivoli hotel. Maria Valenzuela is
my cousin, and she is beautiful. It is true, she is the most beautiful
woman in Ecuador. But also is she most beautiful in every country--in
Paris, in Madrid, in New York, in Vienna. Always do all men look at her,
and John Harned looked long at her at Panama. He loved her, that I know
for a fact. She was Ecuadoriano, true--but she was of all countries; she
was of all the world. She spoke many languages. She sang--ah! like an
artiste. Her smile--wonderful, divine. Her eyes--ah! have I not seen
men look in her eyes? They were what you English call amazing. They were
promises of paradise. Men drowned themselves in her eyes.

Maria Valenzuela was rich--richer than I, who am accounted very rich in
Ecuador. But John Harned did not care for her money. He had a heart--a
funny heart. He was a fool. He did not go to Lima. He left the steamer
at Guayaquil and followed her to Quito. She was coming home from Europe
and other places. I do not see what she found in him, but she liked him.
This I know for a fact, else he would not have followed her to Quito.
She asked him to come. Well do I remember the occasion. She said:

"Come to Quito and I will show you the bullfight--brave, clever,
magnificent!"

But he said: "I go to Lima, not Quito. Such is my passage engaged on the
steamer."

"You travel for pleasure--no?" said Maria Valenzuela; and she looked at
him as only Maria Valenzuela could look, her eyes warm with the promise.

And he came. No; he did not come for the bull-fight. He came because of
what he had seen in her eyes. Women like Maria Valenzuela are born once
in a hundred years. They are of no country and no time. They are what
you call goddesses. Men fall down at their feet. They play with men and
run them through their pretty fingers like sand. Cleopatra was such a
woman they say; and so was Circe. She turned men into swine. Ha! ha! It
is true--no?

It all came about because Maria Valenzuela said:

"You English people are--what shall I say?--savage--no? You prize-fight.