ike Morgan Pell,
with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.

Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband
which so often occurred nowadays. A barrier was between them, none the less
real because it was invisible. She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded
the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this
deadly Mexican stuff. She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she
knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more,
inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a
scene more than anything in the world. All that she said now was merely,

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He
hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the
satchel he had brought in.

"Order a man around in his own house."

"And why not, I'd like to know?" Pell inquired. "Who's he, anyhow, and what
difference does it make?"

Lucia remained perfectly calm. "Well, if you can't see, of course--"

"There's no use your trying to tell me. Is that what you were going to
say?" His face showed his rage.

She did not answer. That infuriated him all the more.

"I see what you mean! But I don't agree," Pell pursued. "This Jones person
is nothing in my life. And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced
to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can't see." He emitted a sound that
might have been designated a laugh.

"But--while we--" Lucia started to argue, and then thought better of it.

"Why doesn't he set his liquor out and see that the meals are right,
himself? Then there wouldn't be any need of my saying anything." His tone
was brutally frank. He really disliked Jones, and would be glad when they
could get back to New York. There was nothing here worth his consideration.
Sturgis had been stupid to think so.

"But when we are enjoying his hospitality--"

"Enjoying? Ha! Suffering, I guess you mean!" And Pell's head went back and
he gave out a guffaw.

Lucia waited for his false mirth to vanish. Then, "But you seemed very
anxious to come here."

"Yes; because I thought he lived in a house, not a--"

The sentence was not completed; for Gilbert came back with a bottle of the
deadly tequila in his hand.

"I'm terribly sorry," he apologized, "to have to tell you that dinner will
be late."

"You mean later, don't you?" Pell