Since that afternoon Nacha had not seen her, but she spoke of her to Julieta and Sara. Julieta, plump and gentle, with velvety eyes and red lips, still retained a great deal of girlish modesty. She cherished the dream that a grand passion would come to her rescue. At times she became melancholy, even pessimistic, but she did not yet count herself among the lost. One result of this was that the other girls considered her "respectable." Among these others was Sara, who had all the appearance of having fallen very low indeed, yet she had led this life scarcely a year. Vice had, however, set its mark on her. She liked coarse stories, and obscene words. When, in the dining-room, some one of the men living in the house told a questionable anecdote, Sara never failed to respond with something worse. She was tall, thin, quick of movement with long arms and legs. Her face was sufficiently pretty, but it was her mouth people noticed; a mouth that was large, the lips mobile, and curving slightly upward, red as pomegranates, and moist. When talking, she moved her head constantly, gesticulating with her long arms. She rarely sat still, preferring to walk up and down, and she could not say a sentence without covering a distance of two or three yards, lifting her feet as though about to execute a dance step, laughing and opening her mouth wide so that one could see her long uneven teeth. There was not the slightest reserve nor modesty about her and she sought her patrons in the street with an indifference to appearances which distressed Julieta. Sara seemed oddly unaware of her situation, and of the difference between her and decent women. As to men, they were all the same to her. She liked them all, and never attempted to claim any one of them. Doña Lucía could not bear her and would have put her out had she dared, for Sara and her friends, when they were in a merry mood, would sing, talk loud, and burst into roars of laughter, all to the great distress of Doña Lucía, who implored the saints to free her from this disgraceful boarder. Sara's one fear was the police. She had only lately been arrested on the street and since then had become very cautious. Ana María gave every evidence of thoroughly disliking her; and several times when Sara indulged in coarse speeches, she had left the table. This always seemed a good joke to Sara, who, between bursts of laughter, would call Ana María "Madame Pompadour," though no one knew where she found this name, nor why she applied it to Ana María.
"Ana María must be half crazy," Nacha was saying. "I am afraid of her."
"You needn't be," Julieta replied. "She suffers a good deal. Nobody knows what she's been through before coming to this. I'm sorry for her. The poor girl has a kind heart."
"Yes, of course!" exclaimed Sara, with a laugh, walking up and down in the room. "You always think they have 'kind hearts.' I think she's got a lot of silly pride. She thinks herself better than the rest of us."
"Well, isn't she?" asked Julieta.
Nacha, now almost well, dreaded the moment of complete recovery. That moment would exact her return to what she hated. She would have given years from her life to be able to live as a decent girl. Moreover she was afraid of having another attack of illness if she could not have the decency she craved. But it was neither for fear of illness, nor love of decency that she wanted to keep "straight." It was for Monsalvat, who was in her thoughts night and day, whether she slept or lay awake, when she talked with her companions, and when she read, alone in her room.
One afternoon when Julieta came in Nacha said to her, "I want to be good—on his account, you see, Julieta. I'd do anything, work in a store, or whatever comes along. Do you think there's any chance—of my being what I ought to be?"
Julieta, who had been listening with a woeful expression in her dark eyes, smiled gently, and caressed Nacha's hand, but she did not look at her friend.