"'Are you still fond of him?' he asked with a queer look.
"'How could I be?' I answered, 'not having seen him in eleven years.'
"'I'm afraid you would find your Uncle Tony much changed,' he said gravely. Francisco's manner was really admirable, but I could not forget his terrified start at the first mention of the other man's name. 'He too, has become a politician. You ask me to what party he belongs; well, he calls himself a liberal, but that is a cloak used by many an unsuccessful self-seeking man. I'm afraid your Uncle Tony must be put down as a thoroughly bad man, my dear. He is poor, as you know; his patrimony was squandered before it reached him. Well, poverty is no disgrace of course, but it is the way in which a man sets about to rehabilitate his fortunes that betrays his quality. Most men set to work; others fall to scheming. Your Uncle Tony has chosen the worser way, I'm sorry to say. He is what men call an agitator, a demagogue. His sole aim is to stir up strife. He has deliberately set to work to inflame the passions of the mob to the point of revolution, not caring how much ruin is wrought thereby, or what blood spilt, if he may thereby be carried to a place of power. Do you understand?'
"'Perfectly,' I said. I thought of my uncle's deep sad eyes and did not believe a word of it. The possessor of those eyes a 'thoroughly bad man,'—impossible. I began to suspect that the 'thoroughly bad man' was much nearer me at that moment. From that time forward Francisco ceased to have the slightest influence over me.
"Our talk about politics languished. 'Put it out of your pretty head, my dear!' said Francisco. 'Thank God! that horrible unsexed creature, the political woman, has not yet penetrated to our Managuayan Eden. Never forget that a woman's sole duty is to be beautiful. Leave politics to us coarser beings, men.'
"I saw that my political education would not be much furthered by Francisco, and that I should probably learn more from him by appearing to be the feather-headed creature that he commended. So I started to chatter. But he was not perfectly satisfied that he had laid the political bogie in me. More than once during the remainder of the voyage I caught him glancing at me queerly. He was thinking perhaps of my half-American ancestry. Francisco hates Americans, though he never lets that appear of course while he's in America.
"It was on Wednesday night that we left Santiago de Managuay. La Tinita is fast, and we landed in New Orleans on Friday. We had no sooner got there than Francisco announced that his plans were changed, and we were going on to New York by train. As soon as he said New York I began to wonder if his trip had anything to do with my uncle.
"We left New Orleans on the first train. Two men joined us there, Managuayans. When I say joined us, I mean they conferred with Francisco en route. He did not present them to us. My curiosity was fully aroused now. I longed to hear what they talked about. But they held all their conferences in a private compartment.
"We reached New York on Sunday morning and went to the Meriden. We found Bianca Guiterrez already established there. Bianca is a second cousin of Francisco's. I don't know how she got to New York. She was in Managuay three weeks ago. I must say that in Managuay the women look rather askance at Bianca, and she does not exactly move in society. She is a prime favorite with the men of our set, particularly Francisco. I have sometimes thought,—but that doesn't signify.
"When we reached the Meriden other men kept turning up, none of whom was presented to us. From one thing and other, scraps of telephone conversation, chance remarks picked up, I gathered that there was a little circle of Managuayan politicians established here in New York, whose meeting-place was in that house on Ninth Street. What their purpose was I could not guess. There were some Americans among them too.