It was some days later when he rode over to Santa Marta and, leaving the mule at the “Four Nations,” called at the banker’s house, where he found Nettie Harding sitting with her host and hostess on the flat roof. It was, though still early in the evening, dark, and the after‐dinner coffee, the choicest product of Costa Rica, was set out in very little cups on the table before them; while the banker, who was stout and elderly, lay drowsily in a big chair. His wife had also little to say, and Appleby drew his chair up to Nettie Harding’s side. The lamp on the table burned without a flicker in the still air, and a cloudless vault of indigo stretched above the sun‐scorched town. Beyond the rows of roofs a band was playing in the plaza, and a hum of voices rose from the shadowy streets beneath. It was a little cooler now, and a pleasant scent of heliotrope came up from the patio. Nettie Harding raised her head as though to listen to the music, and then glanced at the stars above. “All this,” she said, “is distinctly Cuban, isn’t it?” Appleby nodded. “It’s Spanish, which is the same thing. They’re a consistent people,” he said. “Still, I’m not sure that I quite catch your meaning.” Nettie laughed, and turned so that the lamplight touched her face. “Oh, I talk quite casually now and then. I meant that being Cuban it couldn’t be English.” “That is apparent.” “Well, I was wondering if, bearing in mind the difference you were content with it.” Appleby laughed. “I am, you will also remember, an adventurer, and the country that feeds me is, as they say in yours, quite good enough for me. A little to eat, a little sunshine, a comrade’s smile, and enough kindly earth to cover one at the last, is all, I believe, that one is entitled to expect.” He had meant to answer lightly, but a curious little inflection crept into his voice against his will, and he sat still a moment while the memories crowded upon him, with a longing that would not be shaken off. Once more he seemed to be gazing down on the red beech woods and palely flashing river from the terrace at Northrop Hall, though he recognized that in the meanwhile Nettie Harding was watching him with a gleam of sympathetic comprehension in her eyes. It was significant that he did not feel impelled to speak, for they had arrived at a degree of intimacy which made silence admissible, and still were comrades, and nothing more. “If you had said that with a purpose I wouldn’t have been in the least sorry for you,” she said. “It would have been cheap, but that’s just why I know you didn’t. Still, are you quite sure there is nothing you long for over there? I mean, of course, in England.”