Yet, when the regimental band was leaving to the diminishing strains of its quickstep, Andrés joined Charles and Pilar—who had left her quitrin—strolling through the Plaza. As usual she said practically nothing; but, in the gloom, she was specially potent, like a fascinating and ironic idol to innocence; and Charles Abbott was pleased by Andrés’ instant attention. Pilar was reluctant, now, to return to the carriage, and she lingered between the men, who, in turn, gazed down addressing remarks to the smooth blackness of 194 her hair or to the immobile whiteness of her face. Charles dropped behind, to light a cigar, and when he came up to them again he had the illusive sense of a rapid speech stopped at his approach. Andrés Escobar’s countenance was lowered, his brow drawn together ... it had been Pilar de Lima, surprisingly, who had talked. Charles recalled the manner in which her low, even voice flowed from scarcely moving lips, with never a shadow of emotion, of animation, across her unstirred flattened features.
Some Cubans gathered about the table when, later, they were eating ices; and, gaining Pilar’s consent, he left with the indispensable polite regrets and bows. He was vaguely and thoroughly disturbed, uneasy, as though a grain of poison had entered him and were circulating through all his being. It was a condition he was unfamiliar with, disagreeable in the extreme; and one which he determined to stamp out. It hadn’t existed in his contact with Pilar until the appearance of Andrés; yes, it came about from the conjunction of the girl, Andrés and himself; spilled into the clarity of their companionship, Andrés and his, her influence had already darkened and slightly embittered it ... had affected it, Charles added; she was powerless to touch him 195 in the future; he put her resolutely, completely, from his thoughts.
He was a little appalled at the suddenness with which the poison had tainted him, infecting every quality of superiority, of detachment, of reasoning, he possessed. When he saw Andrés again, after the interval of a week, his heart was empty of everything but crystal admiration, affection; but Andrés was obscured, his bearing even defiant. They were at a reception given by a connection of the Cespedes on the Cerro. Instinctively they had drawn aside, behind a screen of pomegranate and mignonette trees in the patio; but their privacy, Charles felt, had been uncomfortably invaded. He spoke of this, gravely, and Andrés suddenly drooped in extreme dejection.
“Why did you ever bring us together!” he exclaimed. “She, Pilar, has fastened herself about me like one of those pale strangling orchids. No other woman alive could have troubled me, but, then, Pilar is not a woman.” Charles Abbott explained his agreement with that.
“What is she?” Andrés cried. “She says nothing, she hardly ever lifts her eyes from her hands, I can give you my word kissing her is like tasting a sherbet; and yet I can’t put her out of my mind. I get all my thoughts, my feelings, 196 from her as though they passed in a body from her brain to mine. They are thoughts I detest. Charles, when I am away from you, I doubt and question you, and sink into an indifference toward all we are, all we have been.”
“Something like that began to happen to me,” Charles admitted; “it was necessary to bring it to an end; just as you must. Such things are not for us. Drop her, Andrés, on the Paseo, where she belongs.” The other again slipped outside the bounds of their friendship. “I must ask you to make no such allusion,” he retorted stiffly. Charles laughed, “You old idiot,” he said affectionately, “have her and get over it, then, as soon as possible; I won’t argue with you about such affairs, that’s plain.” Andrés laid a gripping hand on his arm, avoiding, while he spoke, Charles’ searching gaze.
“There is one thing you can do for me,” he hurried on, “and—and I beg you not to refuse. The mantón that belonged to La Clavel! I described it to Pilar, and she is mad to wear it to the danzón at the Tacon Theatre. You see, it was embroidered by the Chinese, and it is appropriate for her. Think of Pilar in that shawl, Charles.”
“She can’t have it,” he answered shortly.
Andrés Escobar’s face darkened. “It had occurred to me you might refuse,” he replied. “Then there is nothing for me to do. But it surprises me, when I remember the circumstances, that you have such a tender feeling for it. After all, it wasn’t a souvenir of love; you never lost an opportunity to say how worn you were with La Clavel.”