in English this time. “You needn’t commit yourself to us. Listen to your own best desire.”
“And if it tells me to go away?” she flashed, defiant through the end of her tears.
“Then go! Oh certainly go!”
Suddenly her tears came afresh.
“I knew you didn’t really want me,” she wept.
Then Cipriano’s voice said, with a hot, furtive softness of persuasion:
“You are not his! He would not tell you!”
“That is very true,” said Ramón. “Don’t listen to me!”
He spoke in Spanish. And Kate glanced up sharply through her tears, to see him going quietly, but swiftly, away.
She wiped her face, suddenly calm. Then she looked with wet eyes at Cipriano. He was standing erect and alert, like a little fighting male, and his eyes glowed black