Looking up Sylvia saw Adam lift the hat he had pulled over his brows, and take a slender brown hand extended over the boat-side with something like reluctance, as he answered the question in Spanish. A short conversation ensued, in which the dark stranger seemed to ask innumerable questions, Warwick to give curt replies, and the names Gabriel and Ottila to occur with familiar frequency. Sylvia knew nothing of the language, but received an impression that Warwick was not overjoyed at the meeting; that the youth was both pleased and perplexed by finding him there; and that neither parted with much regret as the distance slowly widened between the boats, and with a farewell salute parted company, each taking a different branch of the river, which divided just there.
For the first time Warwick allowed Mark to take his place at the oar, and sat looking into the clear depths below as if some scene lay there which other eyes could not discover.
"Who was the olive-colored party with the fine eyes and foreign accent?" asked Mark, lazily rowing.
"Gabriel André."
"Is he an Italian?"
"No; a Cuban."
"I forgot you had tried that mixture of Spain and Alabama. How was it?"
"As such climates always are to me,—intoxicating to-day, enervating to-morrow."
"How long were you there?"
"Three months."