The other grasped his hands. "Be patient, Charles," he begged. "This will go and leave us as we were before, as we shall always be. It hasn't touched what you know of, it is absolutely aside from that--a little scene in front of the curtain between the acts of the serious, the main, piece. I doubted her honesty, as you described it, at first; but you were right. She has no interest at all in our small struggle; she is only anxious to return to Peru." "I wish she had never come from there!" Charles declared; "whether she is honest or dishonest is unimportant. She is spoiled, like a bad lime." "If you had been more successful with her--" Andres paused significantly. "So that," Charles returned, "is what she said or hinted to you!" Andres Escobar was gazing away into the massed and odorous grey-blue mignonette. "Go away before I get angry with you; you are more Spanish than any Mendoza. The manton you'll find at home tonight." He was, frankly, worried about Andres; not fundamentally--Andres' loyalty was beyond any personal betrayal--but because he was aware of the essential inflammability of all tropical emotion. The other might get into a rage with Pilar, who never, herself, could fall into such an error, and pay the penalty exacted by a swift gesture toward the hem of her skirt. Then he recalled, still with a slight shudder of delight, the soft dragging feel of her fingers on his cheek. He tied the shawl up sombrely, oppressed by the conviction of mischance he had expressed to Andres, and despatched it. Pilar de Lima might, possibly, depart for Peru earlier even than she hoped; boats left not infrequently for Mexico and South America--the Argentine for which La Clavel had longed--and she was welcome to try her mysterious arts upon the seas away from Cuba and Andres. A sugar bag could easily, at the appropriate moment, be slipped over her head, and a bateau carry her out, with a sum of gold, at night to a departing ship. There would be no trouble, after she had been seen, in getting her on board. And Charles Abbott thought of her, in her silent whiteness, corrupting one by one the officers and crew; a vague hatred would spread over the deck, forward and aft; and through the cabins, the hearts, her suggestions and breath of evil touched. They would never see Mexico, he decided; but, on a calm purple night in the Gulf, a sanguine and volcanic inferno of blackened passion would burst around the flicker of her blanched dress and face no colder in death than in life. * * * * *