“There go your sensible business men,” he jeered, “running away! Now what have you to say?”
Roddy was staring blankly down the path and shook his head.
“You can subpœna me,” he sighed. “Why should they be afraid of a birthday-party? Why!” he exclaimed, “they were even afraid of me! He didn’t believe that we don’t know those Venezuelans. He said,” Roddy recapitulated, “he didn’t mix in politics. That means, of course, that those fellows are politicians, and, probably this is their fashion of holding a primary. It must be the local method of floating a revolution. But why should Von Amberg think we’re in the plot, too? Because my name’s Forrester?”
Peter nodded. “That must be it,” he said. “Your father is in deep with these Venezuelans, and everybody knows that, and makes the mistake of thinking you are also. I wish,” he exclaimed patiently, “your father was more confiding. It is all very well for him—plotting plots from the top of the Forrester Building—but it makes it difficult for any one down here inside the firing-line. If your father isn’t more careful,” he protested warmly, “Alvarez will stand us blindfolded against a wall, and we’ll play blind man’s buff with a firing-squad.”
Peter’s forebodings afforded Roddy much amusement. He laughed at his friend, and mocked him, urging him to keep a better hold upon his sense of humor.
“You have been down here too long yourself,” he said. “You’ll be having tropic choler next. I tell you, you must think of them as children: they’re a pack of cards.”
“Maybe they are,” sighed Peter “but as long as we don’t know the game——”
From where Peter sat, with his back in their direction, he could not see the Venezuelans; but Roddy, who was facing them, now observed that they had finished their breakfast. Talking, gesticulating, laughing, they were crowding down the path. He touched Peter, and Peter turned in his chair to look at them.
At the same moment a man stepped from the bushes, and halting at one side of Roddy, stood with his eyes fixed upon the men of the birthday-party, waiting for them to approach. He wore the silk cap of a chauffeur, a pair of automobile goggles, and a long automobile coat. The attitude of the chauffeur suggested that he had come forward to learn if his employer was among those now making their departure; and Roddy wondered that he had heard no automobile arrive, and that he had seen none in Willemstad. Except for that thought, so interested was Roddy in the men who had shown so keen an interest in him, that to the waiting figure he gave no further consideration.
The Venezuelans had found they were too many to walk abreast. Some had scattered down other paths. Others had spread out over the grass. But the chief guest still kept to the gravel walk which led to the gate. And now Roddy saw him plainly.