were chattering outside the open window and the placid waters of the Sound danced invitingly in the sun. But Carmelita was heedless of the fresh glories of nature.
So it was all over, she reflected. In an hour, with the coming of Mrs. Peabody and Mrs. Hurd, perhaps accompanied by Banker Church for Rao-Singh's check, disgrace would be upon her, Carmelita de Cordoba. Misappropriating funds entrusted to her. Hadn't she read in the paper of a bank clerk being sentenced to Sing Sing for ten years for that offense? She took a morbid interest now in trying to recall the details of the story. She shuddered. They would arrive on time, she knew. She looked around her wildly. Why shouldn't she run away before it was too late, disappear utterly? But there was Dudley. Whatever feelings he might be harboring toward her now, as the result of Saturday night's fiasco, whatever he might have said to her in his anger about releasing her, she was bound to him always. She would never run away from him.
There was in Carmelita, even in this moment, a strain of Latin fatalism. Was it not droll? Here she was, daughter of one of the richest men in South America, until a year ago required only to express a wish no matter how extravagant and it would be fulfilled at
