“It is you who know about them,” the boy said, angry like a child. He had seen her eye drawn to the trail again as by a magnet. “They say you prefer gringos to your own people.”
“Who dares say that?”
The elated Luis played loudly on the guitar. He had touched her that time.
But Lolita’s eye softened at the instant of speaking, and she broke into her sweet laugh. “There!” she said, recapturing the situation; “is it not like old times for you and me to be fighting.”
“Me? I am not fighting.”
“You relieve me.”
“I do not consider a gringo worth my notice.”
“Sensible boy! You speak as wisely as one who has been to school in a large city. Luis, do you remember the day Uncle Ramon locked me up for riding on the kicking burro, and you came and unlocked me when uncle was gone? You took me walking, and lost us both in the mountains. We were really only a little, little way from home, but I thought we had got into another country where they eat children. I was six, and I beat you for losing me, and cried, and you were big, and you kissed me till I stopped crying. Do you remember?”
“No.”