"What is it you would plan to do about it, Señorito?"
An irony was in that Latin diminutive! He spread his pale hands. "Your United States officials perhaps exaggerate. I am very doubtful if we have smugglers here in Nareda."
"Unless it is Spawn," the President interjected.
Perona frowned slightly. But his suave manner remained. "Spawn? Why Spawn?"
"You need not take offense, Perona," Markes retorted. "We are discussing this before an envoy of the United States, sent here to consult with us. We have nothing to hide."
Markes turned to me. And his next words were like a bomb exploding at my feet.
"Perona is offended, Grant. But I promise you, his natural personal prejudice will not affect my investigation. Of course he is prejudiced, since he is to marry Spawn's daughter, the little Jetta."
I started involuntarily. This pomaded old dotard! This perfumed, ancient dandy!
For all the importance of my mission in Nareda my thoughts had been subconsciously more upon Jetta—far more—than upon smugglers of quicksilver. This palsied popinjay! This, the reality of the specter which had been between Jetta and me during all that magic time in the moonlit garden!