We retrieved the object and went to where we had left the car, driving to a restaurant, high over the harbor, where, on the second floor, we lunched deliciously, on palatable creatures sinisterly named Morro crabs, and other delicacies. A gun boat lay, far off, at rest on the blue waters, and here and there the black funnels of steamers lifted darkly against a burning sky. People at neighboring tables bowed to my companion. Several came over to us and were presented to me: a ruddy-faced Englishman, of military bearing, and with an ineffable air of detachment from his surroundings: a member of the American Legation, a lean, bearded man, with an unamerican name and a dark face, reminding me of an ancient Spanish nobleman whose picture I had once seen: a fair-haired, attractive boy, and others whom I have forgotten. And the meal could hardly have been termed a tête-à-tête. I was heartily glad of it.
Until the calling hour came, we amused ourselves with a survey of the crowded districts of the city. An appalling number of tourists passed and repassed us, obviously bent on the same idle occupation. Pretty girls in bright sweaters and tennis-shoes: fat mothers, similarly clad: and patient, bored men, silent or loquacious, chewing black Cuban cigars, following their women folk in and out the shops. And on the broader thoroughfares, I saw the Cuban women driving in open victorias, powdered and wonderfully dressed, regarding the "touristen" with slightly cynical, always beautiful, eyes.
The Howells' great house, a stone structure on the Vadado, was a revelation of formal and chilling luxury. As we waited for Mrs. Howell to come to us in the drawing-room, Bill murmured under his breath,
"'I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls!' Isn't it amazing?"
Before I could answer, our hostess swept in, accompanied, almost preceded, by an overpowering wave of perfume. I had no time to reply, but found myself nodding at him in sympathetic appreciation. All through the somewhat stilted conversation which followed, the stately tea, and the meteoric appearance of Mercedes, as chatty and brilliant as some tropical bird, I seemed to cling to the solidity and confident familiarity of my husband as the one real thing in an unreal room.
But, leaving, I was forced to confess to myself the real friendliness and cordiality of these alien people towards me, a stranger at their imposing gates.
It was Mercedes who explained to me that the feminine quality of Havana did not go a-shopping in sport clothes.
"You would not do it," she said, "on your Fifth Avenue. We do not do it here. It is not the custom. We wear our smartest gowns and our highest-heeled shoes."
She made an entrancing little moue at the thought of sweaters and rubber soles. And, with a feeling of commiseration toward my comfortably sport-clad compatriots, dashing through Havana streets, lavish of exclamation and of purse I was foolishly glad that something had prompted me to look my coolest and prettiest before setting forth on the expedition.
I remember that day well, for it was on the same evening, back once more in the palm-enclosed gardens of my new home, that Juan, the native workman appeared, shortly after dinner, a broad-brimmed hat clutched to his sunken chest, his face working oddly, demanding to speak to the doctor.