“No, you must not be fascinated. No! No! It is not good. I tell you, I am so sorry my husband interests himself in this thing. I am so sorry.”
Juana was bringing a bottle of vermouth: all that Kate had to offer her visitors, in the morning.
“You went to see your boys in the United States?” said Kate to Doña Carlota. “How were they?”
“Oh, better, thank you. They are well; that is, the younger is very delicate.”
“You didn’t bring him home?”
“No! No! I think they are better at school. Here—here—there are so many things to trouble them. No! But they will come home next month, for the vacation.”
“How nice!” said Kate. “Then I shall see them. They will be here, won’t they?—on the lake?”
“Well!—I am not sure. Perhaps for a little while. You see I am so busy in Mexico with my Cuna.”
“What is a Cuna?” said Kate; she only knew it was the Spanish for cradle.
It turned out to be a foundlings’ home, run by a few obscure Carmelite sisters. And Doña Carlota was the director. Kate gathered that Don Ramón’s wife was an intense, almost exalted Catholic. She exalted herself in the Church, and in her work for the Cuna.