Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/45

 "Come,” said Mrs Norris.“ Let us go across and have tea.”

The Major excused himself, and took his departure.

Mrs Norris gathered her little shawl round her shoulders and led through a sombre antechamber to a little terrace, where creepers and flowers bloorned thick on the low walls. There was a bell-flower, red and velvety, like blood that is drying: and clusters of white roses: and tufts of bougainvillea, papery magenta colour.

“How lovely it is here!" said Kate. "Having the great dark trees beyond.”

But she stood in a kind of dread.

“Yes it is beautiful,” said Mrs Norris, with the gratification of a possessor. "I have such a time trying to keep these apart.” And going across in her little black shawl, she pushed the bougainvillea away from the rust-scarlet bell-flowers, stroking the little roses to make them intervene.

"I think the two reds together interesting,” said Owen.

"Do you really!" said Mrs Norris, automatically, paying no heed to such a remark.

The sky was blue overhead, but on the lower horizon was a thick, pearl haze. The clouds had gone.

“One never sees Popocatepetl nor Ixtaccihuatl,” said Kate, disappointed.

"No, not at this season. But look, through the trees there, you see Ajusco!"

Kate looked at the sombre-seeming mountain, between the huge dark trees.

On the low stone parapet were Aztec things, obsidian knives, grimacing squatting idols in black lava, and a queer thickish stone stick, or baton. Owen was balancing the latter: it felt murderous even to touch.

Kate turned to the general, who was near her, his face expressionless, yet alert.

“Aztec things oppress me," she said.

"They are oppressive,” he answered, in his beautiful cultured English, that was nevertheless a tiny bit like a parrot talking.

“There is no hope in them,” she said.

“Perhaps the Aztecs never asked for hope,” he said, somewhat automatically.