After they had filed out Amy sat down on the green sofa and started her tale.
"My real name is Amy Wilmot. My father, Gerald Wilmot, was United States minister to Managuay. Managuay, as you know, is a small Central American republic. During my father's term of office there he married a Managuayan lady, Emilia Bareda, and I was their only child. My mother died while I was still an infant. My father brought me up with the assistance of a succession of servants more or less inefficient. Of course I was very badly brought up, but I was happy.
"My father was a generous, frank and liberal-minded man, and all the men in Managuay like him were attracted to our house. Young as I was I can still remember the good talk around our table—especially since I have begun to try to think for myself. My uncle Tony, Antonio Bareda, was such a man as my father, and they were the closest of friends. Uncle Tony was continually at our house. He understood children and I idolized him.
"Well, the climate of Managuay is an unhealthy one except for natives, and when I was eleven years old a fever carried off my kind, wise father. I was too young of course to realize what his loss meant to me. Of course I grieved as children grieve, but like a child I soon adapted myself to my new surroundings.
"These were very different from what I had known up to that time. Since my father had no near relatives, I was adopted by my mother's cousin, Señora de Socotra, who taught me to call her mamma. She is a dear kind soul too, and I love her dearly. The only thing I have against her is that she gave me a Spanish name, while I was still too young to realize what I was giving up. She called me Amèlie de Socotra, by which name of course I have always been known. But I mean to take my own name back now.
"Mamma is devotedly attached to her husband, and actually after living with him for twenty years has no idea but that he is a model of all the virtues. But she is simplicity itself. I have noticed since I have become suspicious of him myself that Mamma will believe any tale, however wild, that he tells her. It is his discovery that I am not so gullible that has made him suddenly suspicious of me.
"For some reason I never could bring myself to call him 'father.' He encouraged me to call him Francisco, and I have always done so. He has invariably been kind to me in his casual, offhand way, which is not the same of course as a real affection. I always acted towards him as my instinct told me he wished me to act, that is to say, the amusing child, the plaything for idle hours. He was the master, the source of all good things. If anybody had asked me if I loved him, I suppose I would have said yes, but I can see now that I never did, though I saw nothing but his charming, good-humored, amusing side.
"The de Socotras are of the old Spanish stock, very prominent in Managuay; and in addition Francisco has made a great fortune to revive the ancient glories of his house. How he made it I don't know. I am ashamed to confess my ignorance of the practical side of life. While Francisco is always deep in affairs he has no regular, visible business like other men. He has no office. He never appears to do any work, but just 'confers' with men of all kinds. It has something to do with politics.
"But there is no doubt about the reality of the fortune. He was rich before I went to live with them. We live in grand style at home. I remember how grand it seemed to me when first I went to them. Later of course I learned to take everything for granted, and came to think that it was the only way for nice people to live. We have a fine house in Santiago and a magnificent country place among the hills. I had horses to ride, automobiles, jewels, troops of servants who looked up to me as a superior being. We went to Havana every year, or to Paris if Mamma felt equal to the trip, and bought more clothes than we could ever wear.
"It is small wonder that a girl should be spoiled by a life like this. Half-grown girls are fatally impressionable. I completely forgot the saner, healthier ideas I had been taught in the beginning, and soon began to look upon myself as one of the chosen ones of earth, responsible only to God who looked with great leniency on the faults of one like me. Life was very busy and pleasant. Everything helped one not to think. I imbibed the idea that it spoiled a woman's looks to think. So I just frivoled.