“You want to clean the room?” Jo Ann asked, pointing to the broom and mop.
Felipe grinned and nodded his head, “Sí, señorita.” While not understanding the exact words, he had understood their meaning.
Could Peggy and Jo Ann have seen him a few minutes later, they would have been very much amused and not a little worried. The minute they were out of sight he stepped out on the balcony and stood gazing up and down the street, then turned and searched the balcony, but in vain.
“Muy curioso, las Americanas [Very curious, these Americans],” he muttered, shaking his head.
After the injured arm had been bandaged with Peggy’s assistance, the girls wandered to the back of the house in search of Florence. Finding her in the kitchen in the middle of baking a cake, they stayed to help her.
To Jo Ann’s relief Dr. Blackwell did not appear at lunch, but when he came in an hour later, she happened to be passing through the hall. On seeing her Dr. Blackwell stopped to call to her that he had met Señor Rodriguez and that the Señor had sent a special invitation to her and the other girls to visit his library that afternoon. “Does that conflict with your plans?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Jo Ann answered quickly, forgetting all about her sunburned face. “I’ve wanted to meet Señor Rodriguez and talk to him ever since you told me about his library. Maybe I can find out more about your house and the old church this afternoon.”
The moment Dr. Blackwell left she remembered her previous anxiety about his seeing her sunburned face. “I forgot all about my face,” she smiled to herself. “Well, I’m going to Señor Rodriguez’s this afternoon, sunburn or no sunburn. Surely in such a fine library as his I can get some information that’ll help me find out more about this house, especially about that mysterious window.”
When, after the siesta, the girls began getting ready to go to Señor Rodriguez’s, Peggy applied cream and powder to Jo Ann’s face with the most painstaking care.
“I believe I’ll start a beauty shop,” she declared as she stood back and gazed approvingly at Jo Ann’s face. “You actually look pretty now.”