Ricardo came by Antonia’s a little later, just as the last scattered drops of a heavy downpour were falling. He was mud to the waist, muddy of face, and dripping. One hand was busy with a cigarette; from a finger of the other, by their heel straps, hung his alpargatas. He had been out since noon, walking across the ditches of the hacienda.
Again Antonia was slouching in her door.
“Loan me your fire, Ricardo?” she asked.
He glanced up the street uneasily, then halted and lit the long cigar she was preparing.
“Ah, but you are tired,” she went on, with a great show of concern, “and wet to the skin. Come, will you enter? Juan is gone, and for good—á Dios gracias! I never liked him. He was stingy and ugly and old. Come——”
“Where is he gone?” asked Ricardo, making no move toward accepting her invitation.
“Where?” she repeated, between puffs. “To join the Revolutionists at Rio Chico. He is anxious to fight, he said. He fight!”
Ricardo’s pale face widened in a grin.
“Maybe you taught him,” he suggested slyly. She understood. “Ah, now, Ricardo, you are wrong. Yes, you are wrong. Once I was quick-tempered, perhaps. But I am not brava now. No, no. I have learned better. And Juan was happy with me.”
Ricardo was sober again. Suddenly, nostrils swelling, he threw up his head.