Free The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories by Geoffrey Household Page B

distinguished and that she was glad Pennyfather had introduced me. I expect that, like most women, she’d been piqued at my making no advances, though she was ready enough to snub me if I did.
    â€œShe was very cordial at dinner. She let me know that she didn’t usually entertain people she met on trains, but was graciously pleased to make an exception. Doña Clara wasn’t inhospitable—so long as you showed you were impressed by her as a hostess. And that was easy. She was a beauty. The more exasperated with her you were, the more you wanted to wake her up. She made you understand how it is men can beat their wives when they wouldn’t beat a dog.
    â€œDon Anastasio got us talking about antiquities. I’m as interested in them in a casual way as you are, and when he said there were the foundations of a Quito temple in Riobamba I replied exactly what he wanted to hear—that I’d have liked to see them if only it had been daylight.
    â€œHe was all set on showing me the temple anyway, and we marched off sedately after dinner with Doña Clara’s blessing and a couple of cigars. I don’t think she would have let him go so easily, but her woman’s instinct—you know, the one they pride themselves is never wrong—told her that I didn’t much want to go and that I’d soon lead the expedition back to the hotel and her. As a matter of fact I was thinking the same as her husband—that the night was young and that if there was anything to do in Riobamba we might as well do it.”
    â€œBut is there a temple?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know. Things began to move too fast. I’ve thought about it once or twice since, but whenever I ride into Riobamba I’m marketing or seeing friends, and damme if I ever remember to find out.
    â€œDon Anastasio had never been on the loose in Riobamba and didn’t know the town. Well, you or I would have asked at the hotel desk, but the vice president went straight to the best authority—and that was the mayor. We hired a car and drove to his home and were told that he’d gone to the movies with his wife. So off we drove to the slush palace, and Don Anastasio hauls out the manager.
    â€œâ€˜Flash a notice on the screen,’ he says, ‘to inform the alcalde that the vice president is outside and wishes to speak to him.’
    â€œThe manager recognized Don Anastasio and didn’t hesitate. We waited in the car for three minutes or so, and out jumped the mayor like a bull into the ring—wild-eyed and blinking and so fast you’d have thought the doorman had stuck a dart into his bottom. He believed there was a revolution on.
    â€œDon Anastasio calmed the alcalde down, and let him have a full string of compliments. Then he said he wanted him for an hour on urgent business and that he’d better go in again and tell his wife not to wait.
    â€œBut the alcalde wasn’t doing anything so easy. Not on your life! He was swelling with importance. He wrote a note to his wife, and told the manager to flash that on the screen. His stock was up. He’d have something to talk about for the rest of his life.
    â€œWe put him in the car and the vice president explained that I was a distinguished Englishman just passing through the country, and that I’d said I hadn’t seen any pretty women in Ecuador. He was sorry he hadn’t met me in time to show me Quito, but here we were, still on the altiplano, and what about it? Of course I protested politely, but the alcalde was hurt. I gathered he was quite prepared to ring the church bells, declare a fiesta, and have a parade of beauty up and down the main street.
    â€œDon Anastasio put it to him that what we wanted was more discreet amusement than that. The alcalde thought for a bit, and then gave the chauffeur an address. It was his girl’s. He didn’t produce her and he didn’t invite us in; he just sent her off in