"No word has been spoken, no promise given. There is not even an understanding. It is merely an old custom that has caused this report. He seemed a pleasant fellow, she had dreams, so--I yielded. But do you suppose I would allow my great ambition to be thwarted by the whim of a girl--to be upset by a stranger's smile? Bah! At their age I loved a dozen. I could not survive without them." He snapped his fingers. "You see now the truth of what I told you when we first spoke of my daughter. It is the older heads that must govern, always. I should have foreseen this effect, but Ramon was offended, and he said too little. Now, I admire his spirit; he is desperate; he will fight; he is no parrot to sit by and see his cage robbed. So much the better, since he is the pivot upon which this great affair revolves. You see what must be done?" "Certainly." "Come! We will see my friend Anibal at once." But Mrs. Cortlandt checked him, saying, quietly: "That is all right as far as it goes, but you forget the other young man." Garavel paused in his heavy strides across the room. "Eh? How so? Gertrudis will not marry this Anthony." "Perhaps she loves him." "Love is a fancy, a something seen through a distant haze, an illusion which vanishes with the sun. In a month, a year, she will have forgotten; but with me it is different. This is my life's climax; there will be no other. I am a Garavel; I have looked into the future and I cannot turn back. I think also of Panama herself. There are great issues at stake." "But how will you handle Anthony?" Garavel looked at her blankly. "He is in my way. He is ended! Is not that all?" "I am glad you are practical; so many of you Latin-Americans are absurdly romantic." "And why should I not be practical? I am a business man. I love but two things, madame--no, three: my daughter, my success, and--my country. By this course I will serve all three." "Since you take this view of it, I am sure that with Ramon's help we can dissuade Don Anibal from his course. The General is sensible, and doesn't want a fight any more than you do. If your daughter will consent--" "My dear lady, give yourself no uneasiness. She does not know the meaning of rebellion. If necessary--but there is not the slightest question. It is done." "Then let me look up Ramon. He and I will approach the General together." She gave him her neatly gloved hand. "Things are never so bad as they seem." "And I thank you for your promptness, which alone, perhaps, has saved our hopes and our ambitions." He escorted his caller to her carriage, then hurriedly returned to his office. That afternoon Kirk received a formal communication from the banker which filled him with dismay. It ran: