Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/28

 come to see me at the house of my friend, Señor Ramón Carrasco.”

“We should like to," said Kate.

“Very well. And shall I call, then?"

She told him a time, and added:

“You mustn’t be surprised at the hotel. It is small, and nearly all Italians. But we tried some of the big ones, and there is such a feeling of lowness about them, awful! I can’t stand the feeling of prostitution. And then the cheap insolence of the servants. No, my little San Remo may be rough, but it’s kindly and human, and it’s not rotten. It is like Italy as I always knew it, decent, and with a bit of human generosity. I do think Mexico City is evil, underneath.”

“Well,” he said, "the hotels are bad. It is unfortunate, but the foreigners seem to make the Mexicans worse than they are, naturally. And Mexico, or something in it, certainly makes the foreigners worse than they are at home."

He spoke with a certain bitterness.

"Perhaps we should all stay away," she said.

"Perhaps!" he said, lifting his shoulders a little. "But I don’t think so.”

He relapsed into a sligintly blank silence. Peculiar how his feelings flushed over him, anger, diffidence, wistfulness, assurance, and an anger again, all in little flushes, and some-what naive.

"It doesn’t rain so much," said Kate." When will the car come?"

“It is here now. It has been waiting some time," he replied."

“Then I’ll go,” she said.

“Well,” he replied, looking at the sky. "It is still raining, and your dress is very thin. You must take my cloak.”

“Oh!” she said, shrinking, It is only two yards.”

"It is still raining fairly fast. Better either wait, or let me lend you my cloak.”

He swung out of his cloak with a quick little movement, and held it up to her. Almost without realising, she turned her shoulders to him, and he put the cape on her. She caught it round her, ran out to the gate, as if escaping. He followed, with a light yet military stride. The soldiers saluted rather slovenly, and he responded briefly.