“Besides, if what they say is true, Saltillo wouldn’t be very popular here.”

“I don’t understand,” I said quickly.

“Why, after all that row he had with the El Bolero Company.”

“I never heard of any row,” I said, in astonishment.

The broker laughed incredulously.  “Come! and you a newspaper man!  Well, maybe they did try to hush it up, and keep it out of the papers, on account of the stock.  But it seems he got up a reg’lar shindy with the board, one day; called ’em thieves and swindlers, and allowed he was disgracing himself as a Spanish hidalgo by having anything to do with ’em.  Talked, they say, about Charles V. of Spain, or some other royal galoot, giving his ancestors the land in trust!  Clean off his head, I reckon.  Then shunted himself off the company, and sold out.  You can guess he wouldn’t be very popular around here, with Jim Bestley, there,” pointing to the capitalist who had driven the brake, “who used to be on the board with him.  No, sir.  He was either lying low for something, or was off his head.  Think of his throwing up a place like that!”

“Nonsense!” I said indignantly.  “He is mercurial, and has the quick impulsiveness of his race, but I believe him as sane as any who sat with him on the board.  There must be some mistake, or you haven’t got the whole story.”  Nevertheless, I did not care to discuss an old friend with a mere acquaintance, and I felt secretly puzzled to account for his conduct, in the face of his previous cleverness in manipulating the El Bolero, and the undoubted fascination he had previously exercised over the stockholders.  The story had, of course, been garbled in repetition.  I had never before imagined what might be the effect of Enriquez’s peculiar eccentricities upon matter-of-fact people,—­I had found them only amusing,—­and the broker’s suggestion annoyed me.  However, Mrs. Saltillo was here in the hotel, and I should, of course, meet her.  Would she be as frank with me?

I was disappointed at not finding her in the drawing-room or on the veranda; and the heat being still unusually oppressive, I strolled out toward the redwoods, hesitating for a moment in the shade before I ran the fiery gauntlet of the garden.  To my surprise, I had scarcely passed the giant sentinels on its outskirts before I found that, from some unusual condition of the atmosphere, the cold undercurrent of air which generally drew through these pillared aisles was withheld that afternoon; it was absolutely hotter than in the open, and the wood was charged throughout with the acrid spices of the pine.  I turned back to the hotel, reascended to my bedroom, and threw myself in an armchair by the open window.  My room was near the end of a wing; the corner room at the end was next to mine, on the same landing.  Its closed door, at right angles to my open one, gave upon the staircase, but was plainly visible from where I sat.  I remembered being glad that it was shut, as it enabled me without offense to keep my own door open.