Part 15

Before the sisters went to sleep that night Hope came to the door of her sister's room and watched Alice admiringly as she sat before the mirror brushing out her hair.

"I think it's going to be fine down here; don't you, Alice?" she asked. "Everything is so different from what it is at home, and so beautiful, and I like the men we've met. Isn't that Mr. MacWilliams funny--and he is so tough. And Captain Stuart--it is a pity he's shy. The only thing he seems to be able to talk about is Mr. Clay. He worships Mr. Clay!"

"Yes," assented her sister, "I noticed on the balcony that you seemed to have found some way to make him speak."

"Well, that was it. He likes to talk about Mr. Clay, and I wanted to listen. Oh! he is a fine man. He has done more exciting things--"

"Who? Captain Stuart?"

"No--Mr. Clay. He's been in three real wars and about a dozen little ones, and he's built thousands of miles of railroads, I don't know how many thousands, but Captain Stuart knows; and he built the highest bridge in Peru. It swings in the air across a chasm, and it rocks when the wind blows. And the German Emperor made him a Baron."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I couldn't understand. It was something about plans for fortifications. He, Mr. Clay, put up a fort in the harbor of Rio Janeiro during a revolution, and the officers on a German man-of-war saw it and copied the plans, and the Germans built one just like it, only larger, on the Baltic, and when the Emperor found out whose design it was, he sent Mr. Clay the order of something-or-other, and made him a Baron."

"Really," exclaimed the elder sister, "isn't he afraid that some one will marry him for his title?"

"Oh, well, you can laugh, but I think it's pretty fine, and so does Ted," added Hope, with the air of one who propounds a final argument.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," laughed Alice. "If Ted approves we must all go down and worship."

"And father, too," continued Hope. "He said he thought Mr. Clay was one of the most remarkable men for his years that he had ever met."

Miss Langham's eyes were hidden by the masses of her black hair that she had shaken over her face, and she said nothing.

"And I liked the way he shut Reggie King up too," continued Hope, stoutly, "when he and father were talking that way about Madame Alvarez."

"Yes, upon my word," exclaimed her sister, impatiently tossing her hair back over her shoulders. "I really cannot see that Madame Alvarez is in need of any champion. I thought Mr. Clay made it very much worse by rushing in the way he did. Why should he take it upon himself to correct a man as old as my father?"

"I suppose because Madame Alvarez is a friend of his," Hope answered.

"My dear child, a beautiful woman can always find some man to take her part," said Miss Langham. "But I've no doubt," she added, rising and kissing her sister good-night, "that he is all that your Captain Stuart thinks him; but he is not going to keep us awake any longer, is he, even if he does show such gallant interest in old ladies?"

"Old ladies!" exclaimed Hope in amazement.

"Why, Alice!"

But her sister only laughed and waved her out of the room, and Hope walked away frowning in much perplexity.

The visit to the city was imitated on the three succeeding evenings by similar excursions. On one night they returned to the plaza, and the other two were spent in drifting down the harbor and along the coast on King's yacht. The President and Madame Alvarez were King's guests on one of these moonlight excursions, and were saluted by the proper number of guns, and their native band played on the forward deck. Clay felt that King held the centre of the stage for the time being, and obliterated himself completely. He thought of his own paddle-wheel tug-boat that he had had painted and gilded in her honor, and smiled grimly.

MacWilliams approached him as he sat leaning back on the rail and looking up, with the eye of a man who had served before the mast, at the lacework of spars and rigging above him. MacWilliams came toward him on tiptoe and dropped carefully into a wicker chair. "There don't seem to be any door-mats on this boat," he said. "In every other respect she seems fitted out quite complete; all the latest magazines and enamelled bathtubs, and Chinese waiter-boys with cock-tails up their sleeves. But there ought to be a mat at the top of each of those stairways that hang over the side, otherwise some one is sure to soil the deck. Have you been down in the engine-room yet?" he asked. "Well, don't go, then," he advised, solemnly. "It will only make you feel badly. I have asked the Admiral if I can send those half-breed engine drivers over to-morrow to show them what a clean engine-room looks like. I've just been talking to the chief. His name's MacKenzie, and I told him I was Scotch myself, and he said it 'was a greet pleesure' to find a gentleman so well acquainted with the movements of machinery. He thought I was one of King's friends, I guess, so I didn't tell him I pulled a lever for a living myself. I gave him a cigar though, and he said, 'Thankee, sir,' and touched his cap to me."

MacWilliams chuckled at the recollection, and crossed his legs comfortably. "One of King's cigars, too," he said. "Real Havana; he leaves them lying around loose in the cabin. Have you had one? Ted Langham and I took about a box between us."

Clay made no answer, and MacWilliams settled himself contentedly in the great wicker chair and puffed grandly on a huge cigar.

"It's demoralizing, isn't it?" he said at last.

"What?" asked Clay, absently.

"Oh, this associating with white people again, as we're doing now. It spoils you for tortillas and rice, doesn't it? It's going to be great fun while it lasts, but when they've all gone, and Ted's gone, too, and the yacht's vanished, and we fall back to tramping around the plaza twice a week, it won't be gay, will it? No; it won't be gay. We're having the spree of our lives now, I guess, but there's going to be a difference in the morning."

"Oh, it's worth a headache, I think," said Clay, as he shrugged his shoulders and walked away to find Miss Langham.