Mrs Gould leaned over to the children. Linda had brought out a glass of water on a tray, with extreme care; Giselle presented her with a bunch of flowers gathered hastily.

`For the people,' declared old Viola, sternly.

`We are all for the people--in the end.'

`Yes,' muttered old Viola, savagely. `And meantime they fight for you. Blind. Esclavos!'

At that moment young Scarfe of the railway staff emerged from the door of the part reserved for the Signori Inglesi. He had come down to headquarters from somewhere up the line on a light engine, and had had just time to get a bath and change his clothes. He was a nice boy, and Mrs Gould welcomed him.

`It's a delightful surprise to see you, Mrs Gould. I've just come down. Usual luck. Missed everything, of course. This show is just over, and I hear there has been a great dance at Don Juste Lopez's last night. Is it true?'

`The young patricians,' Decoud began suddenly in his precise English, `have indeed been dancing before they started off to the war with the Great Pompey.'

Young Scarfe stared, astounded. `You haven't met before,' Mrs Gould intervened. `Mr Decoud--Mr Scarfe.'

`Ah! But we are not going to Pharsalia,' protested Don Jose, with nervous haste, also in English. `You should not jest like this, Martin.'

Antonia's breast rose and fell with a deeper breath. The young engineer was utterly in the dark. `Great what?' he muttered, vaguely.

`Luckily, Montero is not a Caesar,' Decoud continued. `Not the two Monteros put together would make a decent parody of a Caesar.' He crossed his arms on his breast, looking at Senor Avellanos, who had returned to his immobility. `It is only you, Don Jose, who are a genuine old Roman--vir Romanus--eloquent and inflexible.'

Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced, young Scarfe had been eager to express his simple feelings. In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this Montero was going to be licked once for all and done with. There was no saying what would happen to the railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it would have to be abandoned. It would not be the first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. `You know, it's one of their so-called national things,' he ran on, wrinkling up his nose as if the world had a suspicious flavour to his profound experience of South American affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his age to get appointed on the staff `of a big thing like that--don't you know'. It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through life, he asserted. `Therefore--down with Montero! Mrs Gould.' His artless grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity of the faces turned upon him from the carriage; only that `old chap', Don Jose, presenting a motionless, waxy profile, stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did not know the Avellanos very well. They did not give balls, and Antonia never appeared at a ground-floor window, as some other young ladies used to do attended by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on horseback in the Calle. The stares of these creoles did not matter much; but what on earth had come to Mrs Gould? She said, `Go on, Ignacio,' and gave him a slow inclination of the head. He heard a short laugh from that round- faced, Frenchified fellow. He coloured up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had fallen back with the children, hat in hand.

`I shall want a horse presently,' he said with some asperity to the old man.