Season 1 Episode 5

Diet, listening to the girl at his side, was amazed to hear her give figures with as much authority as an engineer, estimate profits as surely as a shipowner. What a splendid little brain it was, and how much better than that imaginative, dreaming type which he deplored both in men and women, a type exemplified by his uncle with all his chimeric hypotheses.

"It would all be so splendid," she added, frowning, "if we only stopped making fools of ourselves. But we are always doing it."

"In what way?"

"With our revolutions!"

They were now standing on the quay, while the liner gradually swung in.

"Oh, are they at it here as well? We found one on in Venezuela, and then another at Guayaquil. The city was under martial law, and some general or other who had been in power for about forty-eight hours was preparing to march on Quito and wipe out the government."

"Yes, it is like an epidemic," went on the young girl, "an epidemic which is sweeping the Andes just now. The news from Boloisa is worrying me, too. Things are bad round Lake Titicaca."

"Not really! That's a nuisance ... not a cheerful outlook for my business in the Cuzco." **** was evidently put out by the news.

"I had not intended telling you about it until to-morrow. You must not think of unpleasant things to-day ... all that district is in the hands of Garcia's men now."

"Who is Garcia?"

"Oh, one of my old suitors."

"Has everybody in the country been in love with you, Maria-Teresa?"

"Well, I had the attraction of having been brought up abroad ... at the first presidential ball I went to after mother's death there was no getting rid of them.... Garcia was there. And now he has raised the revolt among the Arequipa and Cuzco Indians.... He wants Vointemilla's place as president."

"I suppose they have sent troops against them?"

"Oh, yes, the two armies are out there ... but, of course, they are not fighting."

"Why?"

"Because of the festival of the Interaymi."

"And what on earth is that?"

"The Festival of the Sun.... You see, three quarters of the troops on both sides are Indian.... So, of course, they get drunk together during the fêtes.... In the end, Garcia will be driven over the Boloisan border, but in the meantime he is playing the very mischief with fertilizer rates."

She turned toward the liner again, and, catching sight of Uncle Francis, raised her hand in reply to the frantic waving of a notebook.

"How are you, Mr. Montgomery?" she cried. "Did you enjoy the crossing?"

The gangways were run out, and they went on board.

Mr. Montgomery's first question was the same as had been his nephew's.

"Well, and how is business?"

For all those who knew her in Europe had marveled at the change which had come over the "little girl" at her mother's death, and her sudden determination to return to Peru and herself take charge of the family's fertilizer business and concessions. She had also been influenced in this decision by the fact that there were her little brother and sister, Isabella and Christobal, who needed her care. And finally there was her father, perhaps the greatest child of the three, who had always royally spent the money which his wife's business brought in.

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