“It is me, myself, that name. When I was little, I had a sister: we used to play grand ladies out in the sage brush. She was Lily of the West; I was Rose of the South. She is dead, pobrecita, the Lily: she was of this world, which needs a man, not a woman: pobrecita mia.”
“What is your real name?” Sard asked.
“Clara,” she said, “Clara of the Salt-Pans, the woman of Miguel, called Miguel sin Nada.”
“He is Miguel con Mucha, with yourself, señora,” Sard said. “And now adios, and always my thanks, siempre, siempre, siempre. I will return your shoe by Miguel.”
“For the love of all the saints in bliss, caballero,” she said, “in no way let Miguel suspect that you have talked with me. Ay de mi, we women; we suffer for our hearts. Miguel is of a jealousy that would make proud, being such evidence of love, if it were not such inconvenience. A thought, a turn of the head, a look, and he at once ranks me with those infamous of life, with her of Sheba, and Ysabel, Queen of England.”
“I will not let him suspect,” Sard said. “And now farewell, and my thanks and again my thanks.”
“Stay yet,” she said. “Stay yet for one instant. I shall be here sixty years, perhaps, like Caterina La Fea, below, at the poblacion, old, old, and wrinkled like the devil, red-eyed, blind, from sitting in the smoke, sucking bits of meat at last, with her gums. And little children flinging dead rats at her and calling her Witch-Witch. I have had one instant with you; let me have one other; only one; since it has to last for sixty years, you would not grudge me one instant? Then when I am as Caterina, I shall think, ah, but truly I lived, once, at that midnight, when one like St. Gabriel came to my door, and was as a count or duke to me, who am Clara the woman of Miguel.”
“Señora,” Sard said, “I, too, shall think of you, at times, for whatever years may remain to me; but now I must go, and so I say again, thank you and farewell.”
He turned away as fast as he could hobble.
“Stay yet,” she implored. “I do not importune, but I do not know your name. Tell me your name. I would think of your name and pray for you in the chapel and before the image here.”