“Sometimes,” said Kate.
“Eh?” shouted the young savage.
“Sometimes.”
“Here! Eat one now!” And Concha thrust a brown paw with a pinkish palm, and a dingy-looking tortilla, at Kate.
“Not now,” said Kate.
She disliked the heavy plasters that tasted of lime.
“Don’t you want it? Don’t you eat it?” said Concha, with an impudent, strident laugh. And she flung the rejected tortilla on the little pile.
She was one of those who won’t eat bread: say they don’t like it, that it is not food.
Kate would sit and rock on her terrace, while the sun poured in the green square of the garden, the palm-tree spread its great fans translucent at the light, the hibiscus dangled great double-red flowers, rosy red, from its very dark tree, and the dark green oranges looked as if they were sweating as they grew.
Came lunch time, madly hot: and greasy hot soup, greasy rice, splintery little fried fishes, bits of boiled meat and boiled egg-plant vegetables, a big basket piled with mangoes, papayas, zapotes—all the tropical fruits one did not want, in hot weather.