He gave one of the officers some instructions, and the man beckoned Evelyn, but she hesitated.
"I must pay my guide and send him back."
"We will give him the money, but he will not go back. We shall, no doubt, find a use for him." Sarmiento smiled meaningly as he added: "It looks as if he could be trusted."
Evelyn followed the officer to the back of the house where creepers trailed about a rude pergola. A sheet of cotton had been stretched among the poles, making a tent in which a light burned. Her companion, saying a few words in Castilian, motioned to Evelyn to go in. She did so, and then stopped abruptly.
The lamp was small and the light was dim; loops of vines falling about it cast puzzling shadows, but Evelyn knew the girl who rose to meet her. She had seen her talking confidentially to Grahame at the International, and was seized by jealous suspicion. A stout, elderly lady in a black dress, who was apparently the girl's duenna, sat farther back in the shadow. Blanca gave Evelyn a friendly smile of recognition, but it cost her an effort to respond. The Spanish girl seemed to understand that something was wrong, and there was an awkward silence while they stood with their eyes fixed on each other. Then Blanca said with a touch of haughtiness:
"I have been told to make you as comfortable as possible, but I am sorry there is not much comfort here. One cannot expect it in a camp."
She presented Evelyn to her duenna, and the señora Morales indicated a folding chair.
"You come at a bad time," she remarked in awkward French, languidly opening a fan. "It seems we are to have more fighting; it is the way of men."
"They must fight," said Blanca. "The cause is good."
The señora Morales waved her fan. She wore a black silk mantilla fastened tightly round her head like a cowl, and her dark, fleshy face was thickly smeared with powder. Her eyes were lazily contemptuous.