Senor Avellanos was in the habit of crossing the patio at five o'clock
almost every day. Don Jose chose to come over at tea-time because the
English rite at Dona Emilia's house reminded him of the time he lived in
London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. He did
not like tea; and, usually, rocking his American chair, his neat little
shiny boots crossed on the foot-rest, he would talk on and on with a
sort of complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age, while he
held the cup in his hands for a long time. His close-cropped head was
perfectly white; his eyes coalblack.

On seeing Charles Gould step into the sala he would nod provisionally
and go on to the end of the oratorial period. Only then he would say--

"Carlos, my friend, you have ridden from San Tome in the heat of the
day. Always the true English activity. No? What?"

He drank up all the tea at once in one draught. This performance
was invariably followed by a slight shudder and a low, involuntary
"br-r-r-r," which was not covered by the hasty exclamation, "Excellent!"

Then giving up the empty cup into his young friend's hand, extended with
a smile, he continued to expatiate upon the patriotic nature of the San
Tome mine for the simple pleasure of talking fluently, it seemed, while
his reclining body jerked backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair of
the sort exported from the United States. The ceiling of the largest
drawing-room of the Casa Gould extended its white level far above
his head. The loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy, straight-backed
Spanish chairs of brown wood with leathern seats, and European
furniture, low, and cushioned all over, like squat little monsters