“All the gods of our race threaten him.”
“Yet I love him, and would quit everything to follow him.”
“Gods ask not the love we give each other.”
“You mean he would despise me. Never! I am the daughter of a king.”
“You are mad, Nenetzin.”
“Then love is madness, and I am very mad. O, I was so happy yesterday! Once I thought he saw me. It was when he was passing the coatapantli. The base artisan was shouting, and he heard him, or seemed to, for he raised his glance to the azoteas. My heart stood still; the air brightened around me; if I had been set down in the Sun itself, I could not have been happier.”
“Have you mentioned this to the queen Acatlan?”
“Why should I? I will choose my own love. No one, not even my mother, would object to the king Cacama: why should she when my choice is nobler, handsomer, mightier than he?”
“What do you know of the strangers?”
“Nothing. He is one of them; that is enough.”