The herb-woman caught up something which she opened to Julie in the palm of her hand. “It will take away the headache.” She pressed the modicum upon the girl, in the insistent native way. “Try it, Señorita. Never has it failed to stop pain.”
Julie hesitated.
“Look—this I give to you to try. I give it without payment, knowing that when you have tested it you will want more.”
Julie’s hand closed slowly over the gift. The old woman and her basket dropped away.
On her way home, Julie passed through the Escolta, where Rosalie Messenger invited her into her carriage. Julie had met Rosalie at Isabel’s; and in the Escolta she met her casually and often, because Julie frequently took that route home from Señor Sansillo’s, and Rosalie was always flitting restlessly up and down the street like a tired butterfly. Rosalie usually stopped her carriage to take Julie in, then up and down, the narrow ancient thoroughfare they would move, in the human current of new and old races, before Rosalie drove her home.
To-day Julie was more grateful than ever when Rosalie picked her up, for the heat was fearfully oppressive. Julie dropped back in the seat, and pressed her hands to her aching head, while Rosalie, a tropical person who appeared to have passed through a magic immunity at birth, craned her small head at the passers-by.
On a corner they caught a glimpse of Barry, his tall form lifted energetically above the heated procession, the grasp of the colony in his face. He was visualizing, Julie thought, far-off peoples marching under many banners beneath the sun. As they passed him, a bitter look flashed across Rosalie’s oriental face.
Noticing Julie’s attitude of discomfort, Rosalie withdrew her attention from the street. “The headache still? You suffer from it always!”
Julie nodded. “It’s getting so now it seldom stops. That horrible sunstroke blistered my brain. Listen, Rosalie”—she sat up—“an old woman has been coming to my school selling herbs. She has a medicine that she says will stop my headaches. Do you think there is anything in such remedies? I am getting desperate; for, you see, I’m not like you who can drive around in a carriage all your life.”
“What was the old woman like?” Rosalie asked.