"I'm so glad you came, Mr. Hall. I'm Margaret Skidmore." Her hand, thin and remarkably strong, was covered with a white net glove that reached to her elbow.

"It's nice of you to have me," Hall said.

Margaret Skidmore took his arm. "We must get you a drink," she said, "and introduce you to some of the more interesting people here. And oh, yes, to my father. But I warn you, he's not in the first category." She was short; much smaller than Jerry, Hall thought, but a bird of a different color. As they crossed the room, a wisp of the black hair piled on top of her head dropped over her eye. Hall was amused by the way she blew the hair to one side twice before deciding to lift it with her gloved hand.

"This is my Dad's favorite punch," she said at the buffet table. "I forgot to tell you that the party is to celebrate the third anniversary of his mission."

Hall ladled out two cups. "Here's to the next three years," he toasted.

"The next three years are the ones that will count," Margaret Skidmore said. She was smiling at Hall and at some other guests when she said it, but it was not polite banter.

"The Press Secretary of the Emba.s.sy is sore at you," she said. "He's angry because you tried to get to Gamburdo without him."

"I'm sorry," Hall said. "If you'll introduce me to him, I'll try to make amends."

"Don't bother," she laughed. "Smitty's a stuffed shirt who needs to be taken down a peg or two. But I must say that you look a lot different than I thought you would, Mr. Hall."

"I know. I'm supposed to look like a hero and I have the face of a mugg.

Or a gorilla." He was still looking for Jerry. "You're a surprise, too."

"Am I so different?" There was coquettish amus.e.m.e.nt in her hazel eyes.

She tilted her fragile doll's nose, forced a haughty cast to her small-girl's face. "Is an Amba.s.sador's daughter supposed to be a high-and-mighty lady like this?"

"No. I like you better the other way."

"Thanks. It's my only way."

Hall spotted Jerry on the dance floor with Varela Ansaldo. Jerry looked very happy, and Ansaldo had lost some of his undertaker's grimness. He tried in vain to catch her eye.

"Here comes my father."

Hall found himself shaking hands with a portly, middle-aged American who wore tails as if to the manor born. J. Burton Skidmore had the most imposing head of wavy gray hair in the entire hemisphere, and he knew it. His face, still ruddy and youngish, was pink and smelled of fine cologne.

"_Con mucho gusto_," the Amba.s.sador said, holding Hall's hand and bowing slightly from the waist.

"I'm glad to meet you, sir," Hall said.

"Father, Mr. Hall is an American. He is Matthew Hall, the writer. You know. Matthew Hall." The childish, well-bred-daughter smile on Margaret Skidmore's face could not conceal the acid contempt in her voice. "Mr.

Hall is an American, from New York."

"Oh, yes, oh, yes, indeed. Hall. Of course, Mr. Hall. Been in San Hermano long, Mr. Hall?"

"No, sir. Less than a week."

"Fine place, Mr. Hall. Fine people. Have you met Smitty yet? Dear, have you seen Smitty? I think he and Mr.--Mr. Hall could find much in common, Margaret."

"Tomorrow," Margaret Skidmore said, and the Amba.s.sador helped himself to a cup of punch.

"_Amigo Mateo!_"

Without turning around, Hall said, in Spanish, "Only one man in all the world has a scratchy voice like that," and then he turned around and embraced Felipe Duarte.

"What brings you to San Hermano?" he asked Duarte.

"I am now a diplomat. First Counselor of the Mexican Emba.s.sy in San Hermano and guest professor of literature at the University."

Hall and Duarte had last met in Spain, where Duarte had served as a Lieutenant-Colonel with the regular Spanish People's Army. "_Coronel_ Pancho Villa" was the name his men gave him, and the thin, gangling Mexican scholar had fought like a terror to live up to this name. Of Duarte, the General Staff officers said that he was as bad a strategist as he was brave a man, which would have made him one of the worst strategists in military history. But during the Ebro retreat, Duarte had taught the veteran professional officers a few things about the tactics of guerrilla warfare which raised his standing as a soldier.

Duarte took Margaret Skidmore's hand and raised it to his lips.

"_Enchante_," he sighed, and she knew at once that he was laughing at her.

"Senor Amba.s.sador," Duarte said, speaking rapid Spanish, "this is one of the most magnificent parties I have ever attended. How do you manage to give such splendid parties with only your chit of a daughter to help you shove food down the ulcerous throats of these sons of wh.o.r.e mothers, dear Senor Amba.s.sador? It is stupendous. It is colossal."

The Amba.s.sador smiled, shook Duarte's hand, and bowing slightly, he murmured, "_Con mucho gusto_." Then, still smiling, he turned and walked away.

"Don't let this guy fool you," Hall said to the Amba.s.sador's daughter.

"He speaks English as well as we do."

"Better," Duarte said. "Ah learned mah English in Texas, Ah'll have yo'all know, suh. And Mateo, don't let Margaret's innocent smile fool you. She knows almost enough Spanish to know what I just told her distinguished papa."

"Some day I'm going to know enough," Margaret laughed. "And when I do, you're going to get your face slapped in front of everyone, I'm afraid.

Tell me, Mateo, does _hijos de la gran puta_ mean what I think it does?"

"That sounds like slang to me," Hall said. "I learned my Spanish on the Linguaphone."

"You're a fast boy, Matt," she said. "Call me Margaret, if you wish."

She straightened Hall's tie with a perfumed glove. "I'll give you a little time with Felipe, and then I'll steal you back. There are many people here tonight who want to meet you."

"Hurry back," Duarte said. "He bores me stiff when I have him on my hands too long."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Hall said. "You're a diplomat now. Don't you ever stop clowning?"

"Sure. When I kill fascists I am very serious. You know that, Mateo. But here, if I did not clown, I would die of boredom. For example, when Skidmore gives a party, the politicos in my Emba.s.sy, they all find reasons for being out of town. I am not a politico. I am a professor of literature and a killer of fascists, by profession; a diplomat because someone wanted to do Lombardo a favor and at the same time remove my face from the domestic scene. _Claro?_ So it is clown or die. And if I must die, I prefer to die having a second crack at Franco."

"_Claro, amigo._ But must you wear a suit like this one?"

Duarte's evening clothes were his cloak of independence. He wore a cheap tuxedo he had bought in New York for twenty dollars and a pair of worn patent-leather shoes that creaked as he walked. On state occasions, he wore the medals he had earned on the battlefields in Spain. For private parties, he simply wore an enameled gold Mexican flag on his lapel.

Tonight, he wore only the flag.

All this he explained to Hall in his gay, rasping Spanish. "When the Falangist Emba.s.sy was still on good terms, I wore my Republican medals all the time. But just before Don Anibal took sick, he insulted the Caudillo in a speech before the University faculty, and when the Franco Amba.s.sador called to ask for an apology Tabio told him that the truth called for no apologies. So the Caudillo got sore and he called his Amba.s.sador home. The Emba.s.sy is still open, but a clerk is in charge, and there isn't a Spanish diplomat in San Hermano of high enough standing to be invited to any Emba.s.sy."

Jerry joined them, and when Hall presented her to Duarte, the Mexican kissed her hand and murmured, "_Enchante_."

"Miss Olmstead is Dr. Ansaldo's nurse," Hall said.

"How very interesting," Duarte said. "May I have this dance with the nurse of Dr. Ansaldo?" and before she had a chance to say that her feet were killing her, the dexterous Duarte was guiding her through the steps of an intricate rumba he improvised at that moment.

Hall took another gla.s.s of punch. Duarte was his friend, but at the moment he wanted to break his neck. He wanted Jerry for himself, and he hated the idea of admitting or showing it. He watched them so intently that he failed to see Margaret return to the punch bowl.