If she could have fanned his blood as Teresa now fanned the blood of Ramón, he would never have died.
But it was impossible. Every dog has his day.—And every race.
Teresa came tapping timidly.
“May I come?”
“Do!” said Kate, rising from her knees and leaving little piles of books all round the book-trunk.
It was a fairly large room, with doors opening on to the patio and the sun-hard garden, smooth mango-trees rising like elephant’s trunks out of the ground, green grass after the rains, chickens beneath the ragged banana leaves. A red bird splashed in the basin of water, opening and shutting brown wings above his pure scarlet, vivid.
But Teresa looked at the room, not out of doors. She smelt the smell of cigarettes and saw the many cigarette stumps in the agate tray by the bed. She saw the littered books, the scattered jewellery, the brilliant New-Mexican rugs on the floor, the Persian curtain hung behind the bed, the handsome, coloured bedcover, the dresses of dark silk and bright velvet flung over a trunk, the folded shawls with their long fringe, the scattered shoes, white, grey, pale-brown, dark-brown, black, on the floor, the tall Chinese candlesticks. The room of a woman who lived her own life, for her own self.
Teresa was repelled, uneasy, and fascinated.
“How nice this is!” she said, touching the glowing bedcover.
“A friend made it for me, in England.”