Kate watched him go down the terrace, in his own peculiar silence, his sandals making a faint swish on the tiles.
“Oh, Señora Caterina!” came the voice of Carlota. “Come and drink your tea. Come!”
Kate returned to the table, saying:
“It seems so wonderfully peaceful here.”
“Peaceful!” echoed Carlota. “Ah, I do not find it peaceful. There is a horrible stillness, which makes me afraid.”
“Do you come out very often?” said Kate, to Cipriano.
“Yes. Fairly often. Once a week. Or twice,” he replied, looking at her with a secret consciousness which she could not understand, lurking in his black eyes.
These men wanted to take her will away from her, as if they wanted to deny her the light of day.
“I must be going home now,” she said. “The sun will be setting.”
“Ya va?” said Cipriano, in his soft, velvety Indian voice, with a note of distant surprise and reproach. “Will you go already?”