The Howells' great house, a stone structure on the Vadado, was a revelation of formal and chilling luxury. As we waited for Mrs. Howell to come to us in the drawing-room, Bill murmured under his breath,
"'I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls!' Isn't it amazing?"
Before I could answer, our hostess swept in, accompanied, almost preceded, by an overpowering wave of perfume. I had no time to reply, but found myself nodding at him in sympathetic appreciation. All through the somewhat stilted conversation which followed, the stately tea, and the meteoric appearance of Mercedes, as chatty and brilliant as some tropical bird, I seemed to cling to the solidity and confident familiarity of my husband as the one real thing in an unreal room.
But, leaving, I was forced to confess to myself the real friendliness and cordiality of these alien people towards me, a stranger at their imposing gates.
It was Mercedes who explained to me that the feminine quality of Havana did not go a-shopping in sport clothes.
"You would not do it," she said, "on your Fifth Avenue. We do not do it here. It is not the custom. We wear our smartest gowns and our highest-heeled shoes."
She made an entrancing little moue at the thought of sweaters and rubber soles. And, with a feeling of commiseration toward my comfortably sport-clad compatriots, dashing through Havana streets, lavish of exclamation and of purse I was foolishly glad that something had prompted me to look my coolest and prettiest before setting forth on the expedition.
I remember that day well, for it was on the same evening, back once more in the palm-enclosed gardens of my new home, that Juan, the native workman appeared, shortly after dinner, a broad-brimmed hat clutched to his sunken chest, his face working oddly, demanding to speak to the doctor.
I heard scattered words--"fiebre" and "agonia," and the name "Annunciata" repeated again and again. And, finally, when Bill rose with a quiet, brief sentence, I caught a long-drawn "ah-h" and "Dios! muchisimas gracias, Senor!" from the old man.
"Juan's daughter is ill," Bill told me quickly. "I'm going with him. Shan't be long. Go to bed, Mavis, you look done up. It's been a long day."
Stopping only to get his hat and an emergency case, he was gone with the excited, anxious old man, and I was alone in the big room.