His brother hadn't perceptibly changed in fifteen years. During that time Lee had seen him scarcely at all. Suddenly he was sorry for this: Daniel was what was generally known as a strong man. Men deep in the national finances of their country spoke to Lee admiringly of him; it was conceded that he was a force. Lee wasn't interested in that--in his brother's ability, it might be, to grip an industry by the throat. He envied, speculated about, the younger man's calmness, the Chinese quality of his silence, the revelations of his carefully few words. Daniel, in past years, had been often drunk, various women had been seriously or lightly associated with his name; but he appeared to have cast them, the Bacardi and the blandishments, entirely aside. He seemed as superior to the dragging and wearing of life as a figure carved in stone, a Buddha, any Eastern presentment of the aloof contempt of a serene wisdom at the mountain of its own flesh. Lee, beside his brother, resembled a whirlpool of dust temporarily formed by the wind in a road. Daniel had never married, he had been too cunning for that fragrant trap, as well. What were his vices? But were habits, self-indulgences, held in the background, ruthlessly subordinated to primary activity, vices? Lee wished now that Daniel had seen Cytherea; he was certain that the other would have said something valuable about her. Through his long contact with the naked tropics Daniel understood many things hidden from him. He must know, for instance, about the Brujeria, the negro magic brought through Haiti from the depths of Africa. Everyone in Cuba caught rumors, hints, of ceremonials of abject horror. But of that Daniel could never be brought to speak. Lee could even visualize him taking part, in a cold perverse curiosity, in the dances about smothered fires. He thought there was a glimmer of day at the windows, but it was only a flash across his staring eyeballs. From the plaza below came a low sibilant conversation. It went on and on, until Lee, in an irrepressible indignation, went out on the balcony and, in a voice like the clapping of a broken iron bell, cursed the talkers into silence. Christ, it was hot! Savina was sitting up. “Isn't it tomorrow night, or the one after that?” she asked. “This room is like a vault that I have been in a thousand thousand years. I can't tell you how it affects me; it seems as though I must stay here forever, that if I tried to get away I'd be forced back. And I dreamed that everything I owned had been turned blue--my nightgowns and nail files and travelling clock and the oranges. You wouldn't believe how depressing a blue orange could be. We will forget it as soon as possible, Lee. Do you remember how nice the room was at the Inglaterra? I wish you'd feel my head: isn't it hotter than usual?” “Why shouldn't it be?” he asked impolitely.