"I am going next door for a moment," the girl replied to a question from Monsalvat, looking up at him shyly out of her dark, steel blue eyes. "There is a woman there who has just lost her little boy. He was only two years old. The poor thing is a widow and has no work."
"Won't you take her something from me—from us both?"
"I have something already," Irene answered. Knowing the circumstances of the Moreno family, Monsalvat wondered how much such alms could amount to; and Irene, though much embarrassed by his insistence, could not evade confessing that she was taking the woman one peso, the total of her ready cash. Monsalvat put into her hand all the money he had in his pocket, not daring, however, to suggest that she keep that poor little peso for herself. Then he followed her back into the Moreno apartment. Moreno was out, as usual. That systematic ne'er-do-well was scarcely ever at home if he were sober enough to be elsewhere. His wife, too, was absent, for the moment, trying, as Irene explained, to place her eldest son as an errand boy somewhere. With the children running in and out, hungry, squawling, half-naked, the rooms were in a disorder, which Irene, visibly troubled at being taken thus unawares, kept trying to excuse, betraying her uneasiness further by a constant fluttering of the eyelids which, to Monsalvat, somehow seemed particularly appealing.
Monsalvat turned the conversation, as soon as possible, upon the subject of his sister, whom Irene said she also had known. "Eugenia was such a generous girl," she added. "I grew to be very, very fond of her. And she dressed so wonderfully! People said she had piles of money. But she was always doing something for somebody. She never forgot to bring us some little present whenever she called on Aquilina; and I remember, too, that she never went away without telling me to be a good girl. That always amused me. But Eugenia was so pretty!"
"And did she ever mention me?" Monsalvat asked anxiously.
"Yes," said Irene, "often! Though she seemed to feel you did not much approve of her."
"And where is she now? Do you think your father will really find her?"
Irene reddened, and seemed reluctant to answer. When Fernando repeated his question she replied that her father certainly did not know where Eugenia was. No one did, for that matter, as Eugenia never would tell her address. Moreno was just trying to get money out of Monsalvat. "And please don't give him any more," she begged. "He only drinks it up, and he always makes a lot of trouble for us here in the house when he gets drunk."
In Irene's opinion, it was useless to look for Eugenia. No one had any idea as to where she was living. It would be better just to wait. She would turn up sooner or later to see her mother. Then they would tell her about the poor woman's death, and let her know that her brother was anxious to see her.
"And tell her, too, as simply as you can, Irene, that I hold nothing against her; and that I want her to come and live with me."