said Cipriano, with a subtle smile of hauteur, the secret savage coming into his own.
“Not the old Huitzilopochtli—but the new,” said Ramón. “And then there must come a goddess; wife or virgin, there must come a goddess. Why not you, as the First Woman of—say Itzpapalotl, just for the sound of the name?”
“I?” said Kate. “Never! I should die of shame.”
“Shame?” laughed Ramón. “Ah, Señora Caterina, why shame? This is a thing that must be done. There must be manifestations. We must change back to the vision of the living cosmos; we must. The oldest Pan is in us, and he will not be denied. In cold blood and in hot blood both, we must make the change. That is how man is made. I accept the must from the oldest Pan in my soul, and from the newest me. Once a man gathers his whole soul together and arrives at a conclusion, the time of alternatives has gone. I must. No more than that. I am the First Man of Quetzalcoatl. I am Quetzalcoatl himself, if you like. A manifestation, as well as a man. I accept myself entire, and proceed to make destiny. Why, what else can I do?”
Kate was silent. His loss of blood seemed to have washed him curiously fresh again, and he was carried again out of the range of human emotion. A strange sort of categorical imperative! She saw now his power over Cipriano. It lay in this imperative which he acknowledged in his own soul, and which really was like a messenger from the beyond.
She looked on like a child looking through a railing; rather wistful, and rather