“What does he care about?” asked Kate.
“Ah!” Doña Carlota started as if stung. Then she glanced quickly, involuntarily at her husband, as she added: “I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.”
“The Men of Quetzalcoatl,” said Don Ramón heavily, with a little smile.
But Doña Carlota seemed to be able to take all the ease and the banter out of him. He seemed stiff and a bit stupid.
“Ah, there! There! There you have it! The Men of Quetzalcoatl—that is a nice thing for him to care about! A nice thing, I say,” fluttered Doña Carlota, in her gentle, fragile, scolding way. And it was evident to Kate that she adored both the men, and trembled in opposition to their wrongness, and would never give in to them.
To Ramón it was a terrible burden, his wife’s quivering, absolute, blind opposition, taken in conjunction with her helpless adoration.
A man-servant appeared at nine o’clock one morning, to accompany Kate to the hacienda, which was called Jamiltepec. He had a basket, and had been shopping in the market. An elderly man, with grey in his moustache, he had bright young eyes and seemed full of energy. His bare feet in the huaraches were almost black with exposure, but his clothes were brilliantly white.
Kate was glad to be walking. The one depressing thing about life in the villages was that one could not walk out into the country. There was always the liability to be held up or attacked. And she had walked already, as far as possible, in every direction, in the neighbourhood of the village, accompanied usually by Ezequiel. Now she was beginning to feel a prisoner.
She was glad, then, to be setting off. The morning was clear and hot,