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He stared intently down into my face.

As the gate of Chancery clashed shut between us, I thought he could not have made his opinion of me more devastatingly plain.

I escaped with relief into the noonday sun. I tried to forget Mr. Fitzgerald’s obvious dislike of me. I tried to forget Don Ramón—his romantic presence and his romantic history. I was early for my lunch-time meeting with Hester, so I walked slowly across the square. Indians had already set out their wares along the pavement —brilliantly coloured woollen ponchos, leather goods, pottery and the gold-coated glass beads covered the flagstones and hung over the railings. The woollen ponchos had a design woven into them. It was of a little Indian girl, and kneeling at her feet, a tall man with a silver helmet that must have been her Conquistador.

I crossed to the statue and its circlet of fountains in the centre of the square. Some unknown sculptor had made a little masterpiece of the barefoot princess’s radiant face, and had lovingly carved every piece of the armour and accoutrements of her Spanish husband. True or false, Don Ramón's romantic history seemed to survive everywhere.

Even in the lush gardens of the white-painted villas I passed on the way to the park, there I spied the two of them, peeping out of thickets of purple hibiscus, or under a cloud of jasmine—the fifteenth-century Don Ramón and his little bride—like the British put up their garden gnomes or stone rabbits and speckled toadstools. In one garden Don Ramón was offering his princess a basket of potted white orchids. In another the two of them stood, hands stretched towards one another, on either side of an ornamental gate.

When I reached the cafe in the park, there was a small ornamental pond set in the centre of the tables on the terrace. An electric fountain played, and there was the stone Don Ramón and his bride everlastingly smiling fondly, everlastingly drenched underneath its cascade.

The cafe was half empty. Charaguayans, I knew, lunch late. I sat myself down at a painted wooden table facing the fountain and waited.

I wasn’t hungry. After my session with Mr. Fitzgerald I enjoyed the peace and the sunlight. I listened to the intermittent sound of bells, the muted traffic, and the cries of children playing among the scented trees. People eyed me with some curiosity, lingered even for a second by my table, but no one spoke. The Charaguayans are an inquisitive race, a romantic race, but as Mr. Fitzgerald had said, highly circumspect.

At one o’clock a carillon of bells sounded from all the clocks and spires in the city. At one-fifteen I began to get a little anxious about Hester. The other tables were filling up. Politely but more firmly the waiter hovered close behind my chair. At one-thirty, I heard the waiter say softly to someone in Spanish, ‘The English
senorita
is here by the fountain.’

There was a brisk footfall behind me. A shadow fell across the table—a taller shadow than Hester’s. I removed my gaze from the little stone figure beneath the fountain, and saw with dismay that the real Don Ramon had come.

Both of us looked astonished, Don Ramón exaggeratedly so. My astonishment was tinged with a guilty apprehension. I actually glanced nervously over my shoulder to see if the cafe in the park was in sight of the distant Embassy windows. But we were well screened by the lush tropical trees. Only the tall modern buildings on the other side of the park had any sort of view of us. And there was no one from the Embassy at any of the tables.

'Buenos dias, senorita
,’ he said gaily, smiling as he saw the procession of expressions that crossed my face. ‘Well met. This is indeed a happy surprise—and a great pleasure.’

Yet I wasn’t sure. Both the surprise and the pleasure were a little too much. And there was a mocking gleam deep in those dark eyes that invited my disbelief.

Rather stiltedly, I said Hello, and murmured that it was nice to see him again.

‘You are waiting for someone, of course?’ He still stood rigidly correct and polite.

‘Yes. But do sit down.’ We exchanged smiles that reminded one another that thus our acquaintance on board the aircraft had begun. ‘I’m waiting for Hester.’

‘Hester?’ He raised his brows. ‘Oh, yes, Hester. She is your Ambassador’s daughter, is she not?’ He screwed up his eyes in difficult recollection. ‘A rather short young lady? With dark hair?’

‘No, tall,’ I said. ‘Good-looking. With dark red hair.’ His eyes rested musingly on my hair. He shook his head. ‘I do not recollect her very well.’ He spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

‘Well,’ I smiled, ‘you’ll soon be able to refresh your memory when she comes.’ I slid my wrist round and looked at my watch. Ten minutes to two.

'If
she comes,’ Don Ramón said. He smiled at my dismay. ‘You have heard,
senorita
, of
hora inglesa?'

I shook my head.

‘It is the expression,
senorita
, throughout Latin America for
punctuality.
The English hour. Nowhere is anyone punctual like an Englishman, so punctuality is called the English hour. Therefore, if an Englishman has not arrived
hora inglesa
then he is
not
coming.'

He seemed pleased with his own logic.

‘Ah,' I smiled, ‘but that is an Englishman. Have you never heard that it’s a woman’s privilege to be late?’

‘Never.’ He shook his head. ‘And an
English woman's
certainly not! That, even from you,
senorita
, I cannot accept. Believe me, alas, your friend will
not
come.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ I smiled. I was reasonably confident, even though my remark was punctuated by another carillon of bells, this time chiming two.

‘Shall we have a small wager on it?’ His eyes mocked and challenged me.

‘If you like.’

‘I do indeed like. And what shall we wager? Your condescension in sharing lunch with ....’ he sighed, ‘a lonely man?'

‘You’re not lonely, are you, Don Ramón?’

‘Ramón, please. And yes, I am very lonely. Once upon a time, like my ancestor over there, I used to meet a beautiful girl in this park. We were not, alas, turned to stone, but our hearts were. The affair is all done. Yet sometimes I come back at the same time. I find ghosts of the past do not make good companions. So please,
senorita
?’

Put like that, it was difficult to refuse.

‘And when shall you concede defeat,
senorita
? At two-thirty your disappointed little waiter will despair of your ever ordering. They are poor men, dependent on their tips. Besides, if your friend Nesta comes . . .'

‘Hester.’

‘Hester, then... she may also deign to share our humble repast.'

At two-thirty, as soon as I conceded defeat, Don Ramon ordered more of a little banquet than a humble repast. I was to learn that in Quicha it was possible to find
cuisine typique
of great variety and delicacy at even the smallest cafe. We drank iced fruit juice called
naran- jilla
. We ate lobster
ceviche
followed by a cheesy dish called
llapingacho.
The sun was warm, the air fragrant and fresh. I felt the frustrations and fears of the morning melt like snow.

Don Ramón set himself out to be charming and amusing. From where we sat on the elevation of the terrace we could see many of the buildings on the west side of the city. He pointed out the cathedral with the spire that looked as if it was made of stiffened pale grey lace, the old Inca city tight behind the ashlar walls, the art gallery, the fine new clinic with its big windows and its balconies.

Hester did not materialise. Every time any woman of whatever age appeared, Don Ramon would ask politely, ‘Could that be your friend?' The three o’clock carillon of bells chimed, and the four o’clock. ‘Your friend has probably mistaken the park,’ Don Ramón said, noticing my worried expression, and to divert me he pointed again to the little statues under the fountain, and launched into a much more romantic version of the story which Mr. Fitzgerald had told me earlier that day.

‘And like the fairy story they lived happily ever after?’ I asked him.

‘Unquestionably, and without doubt. And it is
not
a fairy story, it is history, fact. Furthermore, there is more to this history. Once again, it is said, a Carradedas will happily marry a girl from a distant land.' He paused for dramatic effect. ‘But this time,
she
will come to
him
.’

The deliberate intensity of his stare made it difficult for me to think of a suitable reply.

‘Perhaps your half-brother?’ I suggested after an embarrassed moment.

‘El Presidente?’ Don Ramon shook his head. ‘Already much married to a Charaguayan lady. But with, alas, no sons. So it seems that fate has decreed . . .’

But I did not hear what fate had decreed. Suddenly the cutlery on the table in front of me came alive, dancing, spinning, clashing together like cymbals. Plates skimmed to the flagstones and snapped. Crockery crashed. Hard apple-like fruits rained from the tropical trees behind us. Don Ramón put his arm protectively round my shoulders. I hid my head and rested my cheek for a moment against his jacket.

Then it was all over as quickly as it had come, almost in the blinking of an eye. Impassively, smiling even, as if this happened every day of their lives, the waiters picked up the debris, straightened the cutlery. I lifted my head. Everyone was carrying on as if nothing had happened. Everything was as before, except that children were gleefully picking up the hard little fruits and pelting one another. And Don Ramon’s arm remained round my shoulders.

‘It is nothing,
senorita.
Just a little twitch of Mother Earth. They happen all over, even in your country.’

‘Not like that,’ I said.

‘Sometimes, like that,’ he insisted. ‘But up here in the fine air you feel them more.’ He squeezed my shoulders comfortingly. I wriggled to release myself and his grip slightly tightened. ‘Surely, there,’ he said, pointing, ‘is now your friend?’

I followed the direction of his pointing finger. I saw a small very curly-headed figure, in a long skirt and a loose blouse, dragging along an even smaller figure, painfully, by the ear.

‘That’s not Hester,’ I said, ‘that’s Morag, with one of the shoeshine boys by the look of it.’

Don Ramón pretended to have defective vision. ‘Are you sure?’ He screwed up his fine bold eyes, but he still did not release me. He wanted us to be seen like that. Determinedly, I jerked myself free.

‘Hello, you two.’ Morag raised her thin eyebrows disapprovingly as she came up to our table. She refused the chair which Don Ramón pulled out for her. ‘You’re supposed to be in the east park,’ she said to me. ‘I’ve just seen Hester. She’s been tearing her hair out looking for you, but now she’s gone back to the Residence, in a fine tizz. As for this wilk,’ she shook the boy by the ear till he squealed as pathetically as a piglet, ‘I caught Petiso trying to pick a customer’s pocket.’

‘Thrash him well,’ Don Ramón said imperturbably.

‘Oh, no, don’t,’ I begged.

With a disgusted expression on her little snub-nosed face, Morag marched him off towards the buildings at the west of the park.

‘Ah, poor chap,’ said Don Ramon, as I got up in some anxiety and confusion to take my leave of him, ‘that is another thing you must learn in this place. You can do
nothing
without being discovered. Always
someone
sees. And now,' he smiled, ‘I perceive you are anxious to go and make peace with your friend. I will escort you to a taxi-cab.’ He flung a bundle of notes down on the table without calling for the bill. We left to the bows and the beams of the whole assembly of waiters. We walked to the street by the park.

‘It saddens me that you look troubled,’ he said as he handed me into one of the numerous taxis that ply the streets. ‘You think your friend will be angry, but it is easy in this city of parks to get to the wrong one. Central Park East, or Central Park West or many other parks. A stranger might well be mistaken.’

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled reassuringly. But I wasn’t worried about that at all. What did worry me was something I saw as I got into the taxi. A gleam of sun on moving glass had caught my eye—as if someone had been following our little meeting with binoculars. From a balcony half way up the new clinic, where the incomparable Eve Trent lay injured.

Hester was in an unexpected mood when I got back to the Residence. She was sitting at a table on the veranda, writing out tickets for one of Morag’s fund-raising expeditions. She looked up at me with a mixture of curiosity, indignation and apology.

She waved my explanations aside with a toss of her head. ‘It’s easy enough to get to the wrong park. I might just conceivably have made a mistake myself.’

‘You did, in fact,’ I said quietly.

She flushed. ‘But you met Don Ramón, didn’t you?’

‘I did, indeed.’

‘Well, that was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

‘Are you telling me you sent me there deliberately to meet Don Ramón?’

‘Of course not. When I arranged to meet you there, I’d no other intention. Then . .

‘Then?’

‘I thought I’d go to the other park.’

‘Just like that? Without a reason?'

‘Oh, I had a reason, a very good reason, but I just don’t want to tell you it. In fact, I can’t tell you it. It’s very personal and private.’

‘Something personal and private to do with James Fitzgerald?'

‘In a way, yes, I suppose so. But I really mustn’t tell you.’

‘That’s all right, I don’t mind. It was just that your James Fitzgerald had more or less warned me off Don Ramon.’