'"
The young man slipped his arm around the young diplomatist's waist, and
they walked on in decorous silence under the orange-trees.
"It seems to me," said Brace presently, "that Mrs. Brimmer has a good
deal to say up your way?"
"Ah, yes; but what will you? It is my brother who has love for her."
"But," said Brace, stopping suddenly, "doesn't he know that she has a
husband living?"
Dona Isabel lifted her lashes in childlike wonder.
"Always! you idiot American boy. That is why. Ah, Mother of God! my
brother is discreet. He is not a maniac, like you, to come after a silly
muchacha like me."
The response which Brace saw fit to make to this statement elicited a
sharp tap upon the knuckles from Dona Isabel.
"Tell to me," she said suddenly, "is not that a custom of your country?"
"What? THAT?"
"No, insensate. To attend a married senora?"
"Not openly."
"Ah, that is wrong," said Dona Isabel meditatively, moving the point of
her tiny slipper on the gravel. "Then it is the young girl that shall
come in the corridor and the married lady on the balcony?"
"Well, yes."
"Good-by, ape!"
She ran swiftly down the avenue of palms to a small door at the back of
the house, turned, blew a kiss over the edge of her fan to Brace, and
disappeared.
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