The girl smiled, displaying two rows of sound teeth shut tightly together.
"How do you do?" she said, raising her voice still higher, and advancing toward the señora with outstretched hand. "I suppose you're Mrs. Gonsallies."
The señora disentangled one arm slowly from her rebozo, and gave the newcomer a large, brown, cushiony hand.
"This is my fawther," continued the girl, waving her left hand toward her companion; "sabby?"
The man stepped forward, and confronted the señora. She looked at him gravely, and shook her head. He was a small, heavily bearded man, with soft, bashful brown eyes, which fell shyly under the señora's placid gaze.
"She don't understand you, Idy," he said helplessly.
The girl caught his hand, and squeezed it reassuringly. "Never mind, pappy," she said, lowering her voice; "I'll fetch her. Now, listen," she went on, fixing her wide gray eyes on the señora, and speaking in a loud, measured voice. "I—am—Idy Starkweather. This—is—my—fawther. There! Now! Sabby?"
Evidently she considered failure to understand English a species of physical disability which might be overcome by strong concentration of the will.
The señora turned a bland, unmoved face upon her son. The eyes of the newcomers followed her gaze. Ricardo held his cigarette between his fingers, and blew a cloud of smoke above his head.
"She don' spik no Englis'," he said, looking at them mildly.