Ballester, like greater and lesser men, had his inconsistencies.
Although he paid his private secretary with "opportunities" and bribed
his friends with monopolies; although he had shamelessly rigged the
elections, and paid as much of the country's finances as he dared into
his private banking account; and although there was that little affair
of the Opera House, he was genuinely and sincerely determined to give
to the Republic a cast-iron Constitution. He had an overpowering faith
in law and order--for other people.
We hammered out the Constitution day and night for another fortnight,
and then Ballester gabbled it over to a Council of his Ministers. Not
one of them could make head or tail of what he was reading, with the
exception of Santiago Calavera, a foxy-faced old rascal with a white
moustache, who sat with a hand curved about his ear and listened to
every word. I had always wondered why Ballester had given him office
at all. At one point he interrupted in a smooth, smiling voice:
"But, your Excellency, that is not legal."
"Legal or not legal," said the President with a snap, "it is going
through, Senor Santiago"; and the Constitution was duly passed by a
unanimous vote, and became the law of Maldivia.
That event took place a couple of months after Harry Vandeleur had
sailed for England. I stretched my arms and looked about for
relaxation. The Constitution was passed at six o'clock in the evening.
There was to be a ball that night at the house of the British
Minister. I made up my mind to go. For a certainty I should find
Olivia there; and I was seized with remorse. For, in spite of my
promise to Harry Vandeleur, I had hardly set eyes upon her during the
last two months.
I saw her at ten o'clock. She was dancing--a thing she loved. She was
dressed in a white frock of satin and lace, with a single rope of
pearls about her throat, and she looked divinely happy. She was a girl
of nineteen years, fairly tall, with black hair, a beautiful white
face, and big, dark eyes which shone with kindness. She had the hand
and foot of her race, and her dancing was rather a liquid movement of
her whole supple body than a matter of her limbs. I watched her for a
few moments from a corner. She had brains as well as beauty, and
though she spoke with a pleading graciousness, at the back of it one
was aware of a pride which would crack the moon. She worked, too, as
few girls of her station work in the Republics of South America. For
her father, from what I then thought to be no better than parsimony,
used her as his secretary. As she swung by my corner for the second
time she saw me and stopped.
"Senor Carlyon, it is two months since I have seen you," she said
reproachfully.
"Senorita, it is only four hours since our brand new Constitution was
passed into law, and already I am looking for you."
She shook her head.
"You have neglected me."
"I regret to notice," said I, "that my neglect has in no way impaired
your health."
Olivia laughed. She had a taking laugh, and the blood mounted very
prettily into her cheeks.
"I could hardly be ill," she said. "I had a letter to-day."
"Lucky man to write you letters," said I. "Let me read it, Senorita."
She drew back swiftly and her hand went to her bosom.
"Oh, it is there!" said I.
Again she laughed, but this time with a certain shyness, and the
colour deepened on her cheeks.
"He sails to-day," said she.
"Then I have still three weeks," said I lightly. "Will you dance with
me for the rest of the evening?"
"Certainly not," she answered with decision. "But after the fifth
dance from now, you will find me, Senor Carlyon, here"; and turning
again to her partner, she was caught up into the whirl of dancers.
After the fifth dance I returned to that corner of the ballroom. I
found Olivia waiting. But it was an Olivia whom I did not know. The
sparkle and the freshness had gone out of her; fear and not kindness
shone in her eyes.
Her face lit up for a moment when she saw me, and she stepped eagerly
forward.
"Quick!" she said. "Somewhere where we shall be alone!"
Her hand trembled upon my arm. She walked quickly from the room,
smiling as she went. She led me along a corridor into the garden of
the house, a place of palms and white magnolias on the very edge of
the upper town. She went without a word to the railings at the end of
the garden, whence one looks straight down upon the lights of the
lower town along the river bank. Then she turned. A beam of light from
the windows shone upon her face. The smile had gone from it. Her lips
shook.
"What has happened?" I asked.
She spoke in jerks.
"He came to me to-night.... He danced with me...."
"Who?" I asked.
"Juan Ballester," said she.