WHEN General Barrios stopped to address Mrs. Gould, Antonia raised negligently¹ her hand holding an open fan, as if to shade from the sun her head, wrapped in a light lace shawl. The clear gleam of her blue eyes gliding² behind the black fringe of eyelashes paused for a moment upon her father, then travelled further to the figure of a young man of thirty at most, of medium height, rather thick-set, wearing a light overcoat. Bearing down with the open palm of his hand upon the knob of a flexible cane³, he had been looking on from a distance; but directly he saw himself noticed, he approached quietly and put his elbow over the door of the landau.

The shirt collar, cut low in the neck, the big bow of his cravat⁴, the style of his clothing, from the round hat to the varnished⁵ shoes, suggested an idea of French elegance⁶; but otherwise he was the very type of a fair Spanish creole. The fluffy⁷ moustache and the short, curly, golden beard did not conceal⁸ his lips, rosy⁹, fresh, almost pouting¹⁰ in expression. His full, round face was of that warm, healthy creole white which is never tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was seldom exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he was born. His people had been long settled in Paris, where he had studied law, had dabbled¹¹ in literature, had hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to become a poet like that other foreigner of Spanish blood, Jose Maria Heredia. In other moments he had, to pass the time,

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