she said. “If there is anybody to listen.”
“Yes!” he said.
He watched the white sail blowing nearer.
“But why do you go away?” he asked her, after a silence.
“You don’t care, do you?” she said.
There was a dead pause.
“Yes, I care,” he said.
“But why?”
Again it was some time before he answered.
“You are one of us, we need you,” he said.
“Even when I don’t do anything?—and when I get a bit bored with living Quetzalcoatls—and the rest, and wish for a simple Don Ramón?” she replied.
He laughed suddenly.
“What is a simple Don Ramón?” he said. “A simple Don Ramón has a living Quetzalcoatl inside him. But you help all the same.”
“You go ahead so grandly, one would not think you needed help: especially