To Kate, the fight simply wasn’t worth one wound. Let the beastly world of man come to an end, if that was its destiny, as soon as possible. Without lifting a finger to prevent it.—Live one’s own precious life, that was given but once, and let the rest go its own hellish way.
She would have had to try to prevent Ramón from giving himself to destruction this way. She was willing for him to be ten Living Quetzalcoatls. But not to expose himself to the devilish malevolence of people.
Yet he would do it. Even as Joachim had done. And Teresa, with her silence and her infinitely soft administering, she would heal him far better than Kate, with her expostulation and her opposition.
“Ah!” said Kate to herself. “I’m glad Cipriano is a soldier, and doesn’t get wounds in his soul.”
At the same time, she knew that without Ramón, Cipriano was just an instrument, and not ultimately interesting to her.
In the morning, Teresa appeared alone to breakfast. She seemed very calm, hiding her emotions in her odd, brown, proud little way.
“How is Ramón?” said Kate.
“He is sleeping,” said Teresa.
“Good! He seemed to me almost done up, last night.”
“Yes.”—The black eyes looked at Kate, wide with unshed tears and courage, and a beautiful deep, remote light.