In the box the other Americans maintained a steady absorbed commenting on the whirling color of the danzon. One, finally, attracted by the manton on Pilar de Lima, called the attention of the others to her Chinese characteristics. They all leaned forward, engaged by the total pallor of her immobility above the blazing silk. They exclaimed when she left the Spanish officer and resumed her place by Andres Escobar's side. "Isn't that peculiar?" Charles was asked. "You are supposed to know all about these dark affairs. Isn't it understood that the women keep to their own men? And that Cuban, Abbott, you know him; we often used to see you with him!" "Yes," Charles Abbott acknowledged, "partners seldom leave each other. That is Andres Escobar." He paid no more heed to the voices about him, but sat with his gaze, his hopes and fears, fastened on Andres and Pilar. Back again, she was, as usual, silent, dragging her fingers through the knotted magenta fringe of the shawl. Andres, though, was speaking in short tense phrases that alternated with concentrated angry pauses. She lifted her arms to him, and they began to dance. They remained, however, characteristic of the danzon, where they were, turning slowly and reversing in a remarkably small space. They were a notably graceful couple, and they varied, with an intricate stepping, the general monotony of the measure. Charles had an insane impulse to call down to Andres, to attract his attention, and to wave him away from the inimical forces gathering about him. Instead of this he lighted a cigarette, with hands the reverse of steady, and concentrated all his thoughts upon the fact of Cuban independence. That, he told himself, was the only thing of importance in his life, in the world. And it wasn't Cuba--alone, but the freedom of life at large, that rested, in part at least, on the foundation he might help to lay, the beginning solidity of human liberty, superiority. He forced himself to gaze with an air of indifference at the dancing below him; but, it seemed, wherever he looked, the manton floated into his vision. He saw, now, nothing else, neither Pilar nor Andres, but only the savage challenging fire of silks. The shawl's old familiar significance had been entirely lost--here he hated and feared it, it was synonymous with all that threatened his success. It gathered into its folded and draped square the evil of the danzon, the spoiled mustiness of joined and debased bloods, the license under a grotesque similitude of restraint.