“’T will prove better than that.”
“Then keep it thyself. Thou’rt a stranger. I take neither a blow from a woman nor a gift from a man.”
“Ah!” said the man, coming a little nearer and laying a hand lightly on her shoulder, “if thou wilt have no gift, shall I tell thee something?”
The girl shrugged her shoulder uneasily under his hand. “I am not a baby to care for tales,” she said contemptuously; yet the man noticed she turned her head slightly toward him.
“Thou art one of a thousand!” he ejaculated admiringly. “Hey now, proud one, suppose I should tell thee who thou art,—what wouldst thou give Tio Reyes for that?”
“Bah!” said the girl, “I have never thought about it.” Yet she was conscious that her heart began to beat wildly and her voice sounded faint in her ears. A little picture formed itself before her eyes, of Pepé and Marta and Ranulfo and a score of others, waifs of humanity, and she herself on a height looking down upon them. She had never consciously separated herself from them,—she had never even wished that she, like them, had at least a mother; but presently she was conscious of a new feeling. Yet she laughed as she said, “I was born then like other children,—I had a mother?”
“That had you; but I am not going to sing all that’s in the book, niña. The wise man talks little and the prudent woman asks few questions, and thus fewer lies are spoken.”
“But thou art not my father?” queried Chinita, insolently, yielding to a sudden apprehension that seized her, and turning full upon the stranger.
“God deliver me!” answered he; “badly fared the owl that nourished the young eaglet.”
“Tell me who I am!” cried Chinita, in a sudden passion of eagerness clutching the man’s arm.