"You want to know," she said, "if I can endure listening to it. Yes. I--I should not have given way just now. But I can endure anything."
Bell still hesitated, regarding her soberly.
"I've heard," he said awkwardly, "that in Brazil the conventions...."
She waited, looking at him with her large eyes.
"I hoped," said Bell, still more unhappily, "to find this place Moradores, where you said you had some relatives. I hoped to find it before dark. But before I landed I knew I'd missed it and couldn't hope to locate it to-night. I thought--"
"You thought," said Paula, smiling suddenly, "that my reputation would be jeopardized. And you were about to offer--"
"Of course I don't mean to act like an ass," he said apologetically, "but some people...."
"You forget," said Paula, with the same faint smile, "what the newspapers will say of us, Senhor. You forget what news of us the cables have carried about the world. I think that we had better forget about the conventions. As the daughter of a Brazilian, that remark is heresy. But did you know that my mother came from Maryland?"
"Thank God!" said Bell relievedly. "Then you can believe that I'm not thinking exclusively of you, and maybe we'll get somewhere."
Paula put out her hand. He grasped it firmly.
"Right!" he said, more cheerfully than ever before. "Now we'll turn on the radio and see what news we get."
Into the deep dark jungle night, then, a strange incongruity was thrust. Tall trees loomed up toward the stars. A nameless little stream flowed placidly through the night and, beached where impenetrable undergrowth crowded to the water's edge, a big amphibian plane lay slightly askew, while a light glowed brightly in its cabin. More, from that cabin there presently emerged the incredible sound of music, played in Rio for _os gentes_ of the distinctly upper strata of society by a bored but beautifully trained orchestra.
The _jabiru_ stork heard it, and craned its featherless neck to stare downward through beady eyes. But it was not frightened. Presently, instead of music, there was a man's voice booming in the disconnected sounds of human speech. And still the _jabiru_ was unalarmed. Like most of the birds whose necks are bald, the _jabiru_ is a useful scavenger, and so is tolerated in the haunts of men. And if man's gratitude is not enough for safety, the _jabiru_ smells very, very badly, and no man hunts his tribe.