“Ramon is partly to blame.  He is just as proud as you or as his father.  When he heard of your daughter’s engagement to our friend Anthony—­”

“Ah!  Now I see it all.”  His face darkened.  “So, this is my reward for heeding your advice in regard to Gertrudis.  She should have wed Ramon, as was intended, then I would have had a lever with which to lift his father from my path.  Very well, then, there is no engagement with this Anthony.  It may not be too late even yet to capture Ramon.”

“The city is already talking about Gertrudis and Kirk.”

“No word has been spoken, no promise given.  There is not even an understanding.  It is merely an old custom that has caused this report.  He seemed a pleasant fellow, she had dreams, so—­I yielded.  But do you suppose I would allow my great ambition to be thwarted by the whim of a girl—­to be upset by a stranger’s smile?  Bah!  At their age I loved a dozen.  I could not survive without them.”  He snapped his fingers.  “You see now the truth of what I told you when we first spoke of my daughter.  It is the older heads that must govern, always.  I should have foreseen this effect, but Ramon was offended, and he said too little.  Now, I admire his spirit; he is desperate; he will fight; he is no parrot to sit by and see his cage robbed.  So much the better, since he is the pivot upon which this great affair revolves.  You see what must be done?”

“Certainly.”

“Come!  We will see my friend Anibal at once.”

But Mrs. Cortlandt checked him, saying, quietly: 

“That is all right as far as it goes, but you forget the other young man.”

Garavel paused in his heavy strides across the room.

“Eh?  How so?  Gertrudis will not marry this Anthony.”

“Perhaps she loves him.”

“Love is a fancy, a something seen through a distant haze, an illusion which vanishes with the sun.  In a month, a year, she will have forgotten; but with me it is different.  This is my life’s climax; there will be no other.  I am a Garavel; I have looked into the future and I cannot turn back.  I think also of Panama herself.  There are great issues at stake.”

“But how will you handle Anthony?”

Garavel looked at her blankly.  “He is in my way.  He is ended!  Is not that all?”

“I am glad you are practical; so many of you Latin-Americans are absurdly romantic.”

“And why should I not be practical?  I am a business man.  I love but two things, madame—­no, three:  my daughter, my success, and—­ my country.  By this course I will serve all three.”

“Since you take this view of it, I am sure that with Ramon’s help we can dissuade Don Anibal from his course.  The General is sensible, and doesn’t want a fight any more than you do.  If your daughter will consent—­”

“My dear lady, give yourself no uneasiness.  She does not know the meaning of rebellion.  If necessary—­but there is not the slightest question.  It is done.”