But it was very charming
to linger in the civilization of that hotel; to wander through its
garden paths in the afternoon after a forenoon's writing and inhale the
keen aromatic odors of the eucalyptus, and when the day waned to have
tea at an iron table on the seaward terrace. Or if we went to Gibraltar,
it was interesting to wonder why we had gone, and to be so glad of
getting back, and after dinner joining a pleasant international group in
the long reading-room with the hearth-fires at either end which, if you
got near them, were so comforting against the evening chill. Sometimes
the pleasure of the time was heightened by the rain pattering on the
glass roof of the _patio,_ where in the afternoon a bulky Spanish mother
sat mute beside her basket of laces which you could buy if you would,
but need not if you would rather not; in either case she smiled
placidly.
At last we did get together courage enough to drive twelve miles over
the hills to Tarifa, but this courage was pieced out of the fragments of
the courage we had lost for going to Cadiz by the public automobile
which runs daily from Algeciras. The road after you passed Tarifa was so
bad that those who had endured it said nobody could endure it, and in
such a case I was sure I could not, but now I am sorry I did not
venture, for since then I have motored over some of the roads in the
state of Maine and lived.
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