"I'm Doctor Palas," he said. "Will you give me a ride?"

When he had settled himself beside Lillian he explained: "I just delivered a child. I'm stationed at Kulacan."

He was carrying a French novel like the one Doctor Hernandez must have carried at his age. Was he bored and indifferent, or was he already devoted to his poor patients? She wanted to ask. He seemed to divine her question, for he said: "Last night I didn't sleep a wink. A workman came in the middle of the night. He had a wood splinter in his eye. I tried to send him away, I hoped he would get tired of waiting, I just couldn't wake up. But he stayed on my porch, stayed until I had to get up. Even in my sleep I heard the way he called me. They call me the way children call their mother. And I have a year of this to endure!"

Between the trees, now and then there appeared the figure of a workman with a machete. White pants, naked torso, sandals, and a straw hat, bending over their cutting. When they heard the car they straightened up and watched them with somber eyes.

Once one of them signaled Hatcher to stop. Lillian saw him grow tense. Then they pushed before them a frightened child. "Will you take him? He's too small to walk all the way."

"Climb over the bottles," said Hatcher.

But the child was too frightened. He clung to the extra tire in the back, and when the jeep slowed down before a deep ravine, he leaped off and disappeared into the forest.

"Here is my place," said Hatcher, and turned left up a hill until he reached a plateau. On this open space he had built a roof on posts, with only one wall in the back. The cooking was done out of doors. A Mexican woman was bending over her washing. She only came when Hatcher called her. She was small and heavy, and sad-faced, but she gave Hatcher a caressing look and a brilliant warm smile. Toward the visitors she showed only a conscious effort at politeness.

"You must excuse us, the place is not finished yet. My husband works alone, and has a lot to do."

"Bring the coffee, Maria," said Hatcher. She left them sitting around a table on the terrace, staring at an unbelievable stretch of white sand, dazzling white foam spraying a gigantic, sprawling vegetation which grew to the very edge of the sand. Birds sang deliriously, and monkeys gave humorous clown cries in the trees. The colors all seemed purer, and the whole place as if uninhabited by man.

Maria came with coffee in a thermos. Hatcher patted her shoulder and looked gratefully at her.

"She is the most marvelous wife," he said.

"And he is a wonderful husband," said Maria. "Mexican husbands never go around telling everyone they are married. Whenever Harry goes to Golconda, he keeps telling everyone about his wife."