“I am raising a regiment. When it is complete I shall lead it into the field to fight for Mexico.”
“I see. That’s why you wanted our men?”
“A regiment means men, señorita.”
“And our blankets and money and guns and victrola records?”
“Why not? You Americans make your profit from us, why should you not share in our obligations? Did your generals spare the South when you had your Civil War? War is not a pretty thing, señorita.”
“They were at war with the South and they took——”
“Exactly. They took. An American has but one code of morals, and that is to take. I do not quarrel with it, I like it. I also take.”
Polly did not reply. She was tired and cold and she wanted to get home. Her hand was cramped and shaky—her threat had not been an idle one. She realized also that Pachuca for all his docility was only waiting the opportunity to turn the tables on her. He was a young man most fertile in expedients and it behooved her to be extremely vigilant. He would be quite capable of shooting up the wrong road and carrying her miles in a strange direction.
The thought made her feel panicky. She tried to remember the turns in the road, only to realize that she had not seen the road—she had been in the bottom of the car, her head covered with a blanket when she had traveled it so short a time ago. Everything looked ghostly and unreal to her in the half light, while Pachuca, she firmly believed, could see in the dark with those handsome eyes of his quite as well as any family cat out for a run.
“Go faster, please,” she said, sharply, for wherever they were going it might be as well to get there before dark. “It’s getting late and I’m cold.”