Don Felix loomed up out of the dark, with a cigarette in his mouth.
"My dinner," he growled. "Is it pronto?"
"Luego, luego!" she answered. He went away again.
"Listen, señor, whoever you are!" said Elizabetta swiftly, looking up to me. "My lover was killed yesterday in the battle. This man is my man, but, by God and all the Saints, I can't sleep with him this night. Let me stay then with you!"
There wasn't a trace of coquetry in her voice. This blundering, childish spirit had found itself in a situation it couldn't bear, and had chosen the instinctive way out. I doubt if she even knew herself why the thought of this new man so revolted her, with her lover scarcely cold in the ground. I was nothing to her, nor she to me. That was all that mattered.
I assented, and together we left the fire, the Captain's neglected corn spilling from the stone trough. And then we met him a few feet into the darkness.
"My dinner!" he said impatiently. His voice changed. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going with this señor," Elizabetta answered nervously. "I'm going to stay with him——"
"You——" began Don Felix, gulping. "You are my woman. Oiga, señor, this is my woman here!"
"Yes," I said. "She is your woman. I have nothing to do with her. But she is very tired and not well, and I have offered her my bed for the night."