It was cloudy again, with lightning beating about on the horizons. But all was very still. She said good-night early, and wandered down her own side of the terrace, to the look-out at the end, which looked on to the lake. Everything was dark, save for the intermittent pallor of lightning.
And she was startled to see, in a gleam of lightning, Teresa sitting with her back to the wall of the open terrace, Ramón lying with his head in her lap, while she slowly pushed her fingers through his thick black hair. They were as silent as the night.
Kate gave a startled murmur and said:
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were here.”
“I wanted to be under the sky!” said Ramón, heaving himself to rise.
“Oh, don’t move!” said Kate. “It was stupid of me to come here. You are tired.”
“Yes,” he said, sinking again. “I am tired. These people make me feel I have a hole in the middle of me. So I have come back to Teresa.”
“Yes!” said Kate. “One isn’t the Living Quetzalcoatl for nothing. Of course they eat holes in you.—Really, is it worth it?—To give yourself to be eaten away by them.”
“It must be so,” he said. “The change has to be made. And some man has to make it. I sometimes wish it wasn’t I.”
“So do I wish it. So does Teresa. One wonders if it isn’t better to be just a man,” said Kate.