The children and I were eating, and Nan and auntie were giving me all the gossip since I'd seen them last, when the maid came in to say that the trunk with the children's things in it hadn't been sent up with the others. There's no use leaving such things to a maid in those countries—I went down to see about it myself; and there it was, as I expected, lying in the lobby where a lazy porter hadn't yet got around to it.
I told the fat majordomo a thing or two, and the trunk was soon on its upward way; and then—as I was down-stairs—I thought to take a glance about to see if anybody I knew had arrived in the meantime. You must remember that American refugees were coming in from the interior on every train, the revolutionary general Podesta being expected to enter the city almost any day—or hour.
I saw the back of a man's head, and I said to myself: "If that isn't Larry Trench's head as anything on earth can be!"—the shapely, overhanging back head and the uncrushable hair that went with it. There was a row of palmettos in tubs, and I walked around to make certain. It was Larry. And he was with a young woman. And the young woman was Carmen Whiffle, and her heavy-lashed agate eyes were gazing into the steady, deep-set, blue-green eyes of Larry. One look was all I needed to know what that lady's intentions were in the present case. "So!" I said to myself—"that's what you meant when you smiled at the name Trench? Perhaps you thought Larry was my husband!"
Now, I hadn't seen a single officer or man of our ships on my way from the station, nor while I had been down-stairs with Nan and auntie earlier. Which was significant in itself, for a fleet of our battleships were anchored in the harbor, my Ned's among them. I looked around now. No, there wasn't one officer of ours in the dining-room, nor in the plaza outside. So what was Larry, a young officer of our marine corps, doing all by himself ashore?
And Larry was my Ned's young brother and my own little Neddo's godfather, and long ago I had decided that Larry should marry my own chum and cousin Nan, the very best girl that ever lived. And—well, if ever a woman looked like the newspaper photographs of the other woman of a dozen celebrated cases, Carmen Whiffle was that woman.
I stood there at the end of that row of palmettos, hesitating; and while I hesitated the orchestra struck up, and I saw the lady lead Larry out for a dance.
I did not have to see Carmen Whiffle dance to know that she could dance. If they never learn to do anything else on earth, women of her kind do learn to dance. All women who have men in their minds learn to dance. She could dance. If I had never seen her lift a toe off the floor, the lines of her figure were there to prove that she could dance. But she lifted her toe. More than her toe. She danced—I have to give her credit for it—with grace; and after she warmed up to it, not only with grace but with abandon; with so much abandon that all the other women who were trying to dance with abandon ceased their feeble efforts and stood against the wall to watch her.
After that dance Carmen Whiffle never had another chance with me. I almost ran up to my room. Little Anna was already asleep; but Neddo, aged six, was wide-awake. Nan and her mother had gone to their room, which was across the hall on the same floor.
"Neddo, dear, do you know your uncle Larry is down-stains?" I asked him.
"Oh-h, mummie!" he cried, and came leaping out of his cot bed. "I must see him, mummie!"