of their discomfort, overlooking it with a powerful will. There was a certain strength in his presence. They all cheered up a bit.
“You didn’t know my husband had become one of the people—a real peon—a Señor Peon, like Count Tolstoy became a Señor Moujik?” said Doña Carlota, with an attempt at raillery.
“Anyway it suits him,” said Kate.
“There!” said Don Ramón. “Give the devil his dues.”
But there was something unyielding, unbending about him. He laughed and spoke to the women only from a surface self. Underneath, powerful and inscrutable, he made no connection with them.
So it was at lunch. There was a flitting conversation, with intervals of silence. It was evident that Ramón was thinking in another world, in the silence. And the ponderous stillness of his will, working in another sphere, made the women feel overshadowed.
“The Señora is like me,