“Señorita,” he said, “for the sake of old times, will you let me offer you refreshment?”
“That, no,” she said: then, in English, “No thanky.”
The talk did not seem successful, so Sard said:
“We were lucky in the Venturer. We saved Don Manuel for a great future.” The old woman drew back as though he had insulted her or wounded her to the quick.
“For a great future?” she said, swelling like a cat about to spring. “For a great future? I trust, yes, for a very great future; for an execution so great that all this city, this bay, the mountains and the islands of the sea shall be black with people come to watch it. Let him live, Lord, to taste the greatness of that future, the Lord-with-us, the padre Pipi. You, sailor, dog of the tides, who caused us the contamination of his presence, and cursed this city with his life, speak not to Jenny Suarez of dons and futures, he, the accursed, the accursed, whose footsteps press blood out of the stones.” She spat towards Sard in the vehemence of her hate (she did not do it well) and went shaking, muttering and clicking past him, and so away down the great marble stairs.
“I suppose she was a Red,” Sard thought, “become a Red since Don Manuel became Dictator. I thought that perhaps Waycock lied about the Dictator’s popularity.”
When the waiter brought him his coffee, he asked whether Don Manuel were much loved.
“Very much, Señor.”
“Since when, and why have they named him padre Pipi?”
The waiter looked round in alarm.