“I’m going to-morrow, in the afternoon. It’s a queer place, an old house on Hyde Street, with a big pepper-tree, the biggest in the city, they say, growing in the front garden. It was once quite a fine house, long ago in the early days, and was built by these people, the Garcias, when they still had money. Then they lost it all, and now the old lady and her son’s wife take a few people, as the house is too big for them and they are so poor. Young Mrs. Garcia is a widow. Her husband was killed in the mines by a blast.”
“It sounds picturesque. Do they speak English?”
“The señora, that’s the old lady, doesn’t. She has lived here since before the Gringo came, but she can’t speak any English at all. The daughter-in-law is an American, a Southerner. She looked very untidy the day I went there. I’m afraid I’ll be homesick. You’ll come to see me sometimes, won’t you?”
There was no coquetry in the remark. Her dread of loneliness was all that spoke.
Essex met her eyes, dark and wistful, and nodded without speaking.
She looked back at the fire and again spread her hands to it, palms out.
“It’s—it’s—rather a dilapidated sort of place,” she continued after a moment’s pause, “but perhaps I’ll get used to it.”
There was distinct pleading for confirmation in this. Her voice was slightly husky. Essex, however, with that perversity which marked all his treatment of her, said:
“Do you think you will? It’s difficult for a woman to accommodate herself to such changed conditions—I mean a woman of refinement, like you.”
She continued feebly to make her stand.