Ramón looked swiftly at Cipriano, then said:
“I know you don’t.”
But the gentle protective tone of his voice only made Kate rebel again. She brimmed over with sudden tears, crying:
“You don’t really want me.”
“Yes, I want you!—Verdad! Verdad!” exclaimed Cipriano, in his low, secret, almost muttering voice.
And even amid her tears, Kate was thinking to herself: What a fraud I am! I know all the time it is I who don’t altogether want them. I want myself to myself. But I can fool them so that they shan’t find out.
For she heard the hot, phallic passion in Cipriano’s voice.
Then came the voice of Ramón, like a chill:
“It is you who don’t want,” he said, in English this time. “You needn’t commit yourself to us. Listen to your own best desire.”
“And if it tells me to go away?” she flashed, defiant through the end of her tears.