The Four Corners of the World Part 10

"I am honoured, Senor Juan," she said sedately, "but I am already promised."

Ballester turned abruptly away. Whether he had seen the smile, whether, if he had seen it, he understood it, I never knew.

"You had better get the Senorita a carriage," he said to the officer at the door. As the man went out, the music from the ballroom floated in. Juan Ballester hesitated, and no shock which Olivia had given to me came near the shock which his next words produced.

"Don Santiago shall have his money. You can draw on it, Senorita, to-morrow, before you go."

"Thank you," she said.

The messenger reappeared. A carriage was waiting. Olivia rose and looked at Juan timidly. He walked ceremoniously to the door and held it open.

"Good night," she said.

He bowed and smiled in a friendly fas.h.i.+on enough, but he did not answer. It seemed that he had spoken his last word to her. She hesitated and went out. At once the President took a quick step towards me.

"Do you know what is said to-night?" he said violently.

I drew back. I could not think what he meant. To tell the truth, I found him rather alarming.

"No," I answered.

"Why, that I have given this party as a farewell; that I am still going to bolt from Maldivia. Do you see? I have spent all this money for nothing."

I drew a breath of relief. His violence was not aimed against me.

"That's a pity," I said. "But the rumour can still be killed. I thought of a way yesterday."

"Will it cost much?" he asked.

"Very little."

"What am I to do?"

"Paint the Presidential House," said I. "It wants it badly, and all Santa Paula will be very sure that you wouldn't spend money in paint if you meant to run away."

"That's a good idea," said he, and he sat down at once and began to figure out the expense. "A couple of hundred dollars will do it."

"Not well," said I.

"We don't want it done well," said Juan. "Two men on a plank will, be enough. A couple of hundred dollars is too much. Half that will be quite sufficient. By the way"--and he sat with his pen poised--"just run after--her--and tell her that Vandeleur is landing to-morrow at Trinidad. I invented some business for him there."

He bent down over the desk. His back was towards the door. As I turned the handle, someone was opening it from the other side. It was Olivia Calavera.

"I came back," she said, with the colour mantling in her face. "You see, I am going away to-morrow--and I hadn't said 'Good-bye.'"

Juan must have heard her voice.

"Please go and give that message," he said sharply. "And shut the door! I don't want to be disturbed."

Olivia drew back quickly. I was amazed to see that she was hurt.

"His message is for you," I said severely. "Harry Vandeleur lands at Trinidad to-morrow."

"Thank you," she said slowly; she turned away and walked as slowly down the pa.s.sage. "Goodbye," she said, with her back towards me.

"I will see you off to-morrow, Senorita," I said; and she turned back to me.

"No," she said gently. "Don't do that! We will say 'Good-bye' here."

She gave me her hand--she had been on the point of going without even doing that. "Thank you very much," she added, and she walked rather listlessly away. She left me with an uneasy impression that her thanks were not very sincere. I am bound to admit that Olivia puzzled me that night. To extract the proposal of marriage from Ballester was within the rules of the game and good play into the bargain. But to come back again as she had done, was not quite fair. However, as I watched her go, I thought that I would keep my bewilderment to myself. I have never asked Harry Vandeleur, for instance, whether he could explain it. I went back to the study.

"I think fifty dollars will be ample," said Ballester, still figuring on his paper. "Has she gone?"

"She is going," said I. He rose from his chair, broke off a rose from a bowl of flowers which, on this night only, decorated the room. Then he opened the window and leaned out. Olivia, I reckoned, would be just at this moment stepping into the carriage. He tossed the rose down and drew back quickly out of sight.

"Shall it be green paint, your Excellency?" I asked.

His Excellency, I regret to say, swore loudly.

"Never in this world!" said he.

I had left the door open. The music of a languorous and melting waltz filled the room.

"I do loathe music!" cried Juan Ballester violently. It was the nearest approach to a sentimental remark that I had ever heard him make.

NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF CAPRICORN

NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF CAPRICORN

The strong civic spirit of the Midlands makes them fertile in reformers; and Mr. Endicott even in his early youth was plagued by the divine discontent with things as they are. Neither a happy marriage, nor a prosperous business, nor an engaging daughter appeased him. But he was slow in discovering a remedy. The absence of any sense of humour blunted his wits and he lived in a vague distress, out of which it needed the death of his wife to quicken him. "Some result must come out of all these years of pondering and discomfort, if only as a memorial to her," he reflected, and he burrowed again amongst the innumerable panaceas. Then at last he found it--on an afternoon walk in June when the sharp contrast between the grime of the town and the loveliness of green and leaf which embowered it so closely, smote upon him almost with pain. The Minimum Wage. Like Childe Roland's Dark Tower, it had lain within his vision for many a long mile of his pilgrimage. His eyes had rested on it and had never taken it in; so simple and clear it was to the view.

Thereafter he was quick to act. Time was running on. He was forty-two.

He disposed of his business, and a year later was elected to Parliament. Once in the House he walked warily. He had no personal ambition, but he was always afraid lest some indiscretion should set the House against him and delay his cause. Mr. Endicott had his plan quite clear in his mind. Samuel Plimsoll was his model. The great Bill for the establishment of the Minimum Wage should be a private member's Bill moved from the back benches session after session if need be, and driven through Parliament into Law at last by the sheer weight of its public value.

Accordingly for a year he felt his way, learning the rules and orders, speaking now and then without subservience and without impertinence; and after the prorogation of the House for the summer, he took his daughter with him to a farm-house set apart in a dale of c.u.mberland.

In that solitary place, inspired by the brown fells and the tumbling streams, and with the one person he loved as his companion, he proposed finally to smooth and round his Bill.

Accident or destiny, however--whichever you like to call the beginning of tragic things--put an Australian in the same compartment of the railway-carriage; and the Australian was led to converse by the sight of various cameras on the luggage rack.

"My father is very fond of photography," said Elsie Endicott. "It amuses him, and the pictures which he takes if the day is clear, are sometimes quite recognisable."