But neither by the venturesome Miss Polly nor by her athlete servitor was the episode to be so readily dismissed. Late that afternoon, when the Brewster party were sitting about iced fruit drinks amid the dingy and soiled elegance of the Kast’s one private parlor, Mr. Sherwen’s card arrived, followed shortly by Mr. Sherwen’s immaculate self, creaseless except for one furrow of the brow.
“How you are going to get out of here I really don’t know,” he said.
“Why should we hurry?” inquired Miss Brewster. “I don’t find Caracuña so uninteresting.”
“Never since I came here has it been so charming,” said the legation representative, with a smiling bow. “But, much as your party adds to the landscape, I’m not at all sure that this city is the most healthful spot for you at present.”
“You mean the plague?” asked Mr. Brewster.
“Not quite so loud, please. ‘Healthful,’ as I used it, was, in part, a figure of speech. Something is brewing hereabout.”
“Not a revolution?” cried Miss Polly, with eyes alight. “Oh, do brew a revolution for me! I should so adore to see one!”
“Possibly you may, though I hardly think it. Some readjustment of foreign relations, at most. The Dutch blockade is, perhaps, only a beginning. However, it’s sufficient to keep you bottled up, though if we could get word to them, I dare say they would let a yacht go out.”
“Senator Richland, of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is an old friend of my family,” said Carroll, in his measured tones. “A cable—”
“Would probably never get through. This Government wouldn’t allow it. There are other possibilities. Perhaps, Mr. Brewster,” he continued, with a side glance at the girl, “we might talk it over at length this evening.”