Chapter 10 Summary

General Arroyo releases Harriet, who joins old gringo in the Pullman car. She accepts a glass of tequila and they sit down to visit, almost as if they were in the drawing room of a home. They exchange simple pleasantries for awhile. He asks her why she left New York. Rather than speak about the recent past, she tells him of the time when her father left for the Spanish-American War, when she was only 16. He never returned.

Harriet tells the old gringo a story about some of her ancestors: a great uncle who bought many paintings in Europe that were not appreciated in the United States, and his daughter who gave the paintings away. The family would have been wealthy in a few years if her aunt had only hung on to the paintings or bequeathed them to family. Instead, the recipient...