"Deserted?" she asked. "Our friend Felipe would desert his mother for a redhead."
"He's quite a guy," Hall laughed.
"Come on," she said. "There's a crowd that's been dying to meet you. The country's biggest publisher and some of the more important business men."
"Fernandez?"
"That's right. He publishes El Imparcial. Confidentially, his paper is getting the Cabot Prize this year. Dad arranged it."
Fernandez was standing with a group of three Hermanitos and a blonde fortyish woman in a tight dress whom Hall recognized instantly as an American. "I'm Giselle Prescott," she said, her smile revealing flecks of lipstick on her yellow teeth.
"Take care of the amenities, will you, Gis?" Margaret Skidmore said. "Dad is flagging me over at the other end." She picked up her skirts, hurried to her father's rescue.
Giselle Prescott introduced Hall to José Fernandez, tall, handsome, in his early fifties. Fernandez presented him to Segundo Vardieno, Francisco Davila, and Alfonso Quinones. Davila was a man of one age and build with Fernandez, the other two were shorter and about ten years younger. Breathlessly, Giselle Prescott told Hall that Vardieno and Quinones were among the ten largest landowners in the nation, and Davila its leading attorney. They all made modest denials.
Quinones asked Giselle to dance, and she accepted gladly. Her myriad blonde ringlets neatly blocked her partner's forward view.
"Very accomplished writer," Hall said. "In the popular magazine field, Miss Prescott is supreme."