"He didn't mention it," I said.
"So? That is strange; but he is a secretive Dutchman by nature. He specializes in prying into the other fellow's affairs. Hm-m."
He fell into a reverie while I stared at him. Spawn, the big—the only big—quicksilver producer here!
The President interrupted my startled thoughts. "I hope you did not intimate your real purpose?"
"No."
We both turned at the sound of an opening door. Markes called, "Ah, come in Perona! Are you alone? Good! Close that slide. Here is Chief Hanley's representative." He introduced us all in a breath. "This is interesting, Perona. Damnably interesting. We're being cheated, what? It looks that way. Sit down, Perona."
This was Greko Perona. Nareda's Minister of Internal Affairs. Spawn had mentioned him to me. A South American. A man in his fifties. Thin and darkly saturnine, with iron-gray hair, carefully plastered to cover his half-bald head. He sat listening to the President's harangue, twirling the upturned waxen ends of his artificially black mustache. A wave of perfume enveloped him. A ladies' courtier, this Perona by the look of him. His white uniform was immaculate, carefully tailored and carefully worn to set off at its best his still trim and erect figure.
"Well," he said, when at last the President paused, "of a surety something must be done."
Perona seemed not excited, rather more carefully watchful, of his own words, and of me. His small dark eyes roved me.