She asked the question so innocently that I felt sure it was without any sinister intention.
"From Havana to Key West, and thence to Jamaica, Barbadoes, and so to Equinata!"
"And your plans after leaving here?"
"I have scarcely formed any plans yet," I answered, and then I added with a fair amount of truth, "You see, Señorita, it all depends upon circumstances. I may go on to Rio, thence to Buenos Ayres, and perhaps round the Horn to the Pacific Islands, or I may return to England at once."
"While we remain on here leading our humdrum life," said the President, toying with his champagne glass as he spoke, "and ending the year almost as we began it, seeing few strangers and interested only in our own little mediocre affairs."
"I fear your Excellency must speak ironically," I said. "What grander or more interesting occupation can there be in the world, than the work of building up a new country, a country which may ultimately take its place among the greatest of the earth? While I am fluttering like a butterfly from place to place, you are guiding, helping, and benefiting your fellow-man, and through him the entire human race."
"You are an idealist, I perceive, Señor Trevelyan," the President returned, with one of his peculiar smiles. "Unfortunately for your theory, my fellow-man does not always wish to be benefited, as your words would lead one to suppose. To my thinking he is very like that noble animal, the horse, who, while being capable of great things, must first learn the principles of subjection. What say you, General Sagana?"
"I agree with your Excellency," replied the General with some little embarrassment, though why he should have felt it I could not at the time understand.
I turned to the Señorita Dolores.
"You are deeply interested in politics, of course, Señorita?" I said, as innocently as I knew how.