Over at Panama the Cortlandts were looking for a house to lease.
Affairs had reached a point where it seemed advisable to give up
their quarters at the Tivoli and enter into closer contact with
the life of the Spanish city. One reason for the move was the
necessity for a greater privacy than the hotel afforded, for the
time was not far distant when privacy might prove of paramount
importance.
Meanwhile they gave a ceremonious little dinner, the one and only
guest being Andres Garavel, the banker.
Of all the charming peoples of Central America there are, perhaps,
none more polished and well-bred than the upper-class Panamanians.
Of this agreeable type, Senor Garavel was an admirable example,
having sprung from the finest Castilian stock, as a name running
back through the pages of history to the earliest conquests
attested. Other Garavels had played important parts in the
troubled affairs of Guatemala, and it was the banker's proud boast
that one of his ancestors had assisted Alvarado to christen the
first capital of that country--the city of St. James the
Gentleman--in 1524. The name had later figured prominently in
Antigua, that Athens of the New World where the flower of Spanish
America gathered. A later forebear had fled southward at the time
of the disturbances incidental to the revolt of the colonies, but
in his departure there had been no disgrace, and since that time
the Garavels had worthily maintained the family traditions of
dignity and honor.
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