"There," she said. For a second, her eyes narrowed; she turned away, repelled, and as she turned, the ember dropped alongside the bed.
"You could have burned me!" wailed Fernando. "Where's Angelina? ... get her!"
"She's outdoors, playing with the children."
"Playing with the children: doesn't she do anything else? Doesn't anybody do anything here?"
A heavy tread outside Fernando's room made Chavela glance toward the door; a spur dragged its wheel over tiles; it was Jorge Farias, the corn-production manager, a hungry-looking man, half Spanish, half Tarascan. He removed his wide-brimmed straw hat as he halted in the bedroom doorway; the rough brim scraped across his trousers.
"Farias wants to see you," said Chavela, and went out.
"May I come in?" asked Farias.
Don Fernando motioned him inside with childish gesture. As Farias entered, the old man spat on the floor.
Farias was dressed in soiled brown trousers and a white shirt designed like a four-pocketed jacket, he had on black riding boots spurred with star-shaped rowels, polished from use. He stood stiffly erect. He disliked the old man. Nearly fifty, he felt that his years of service, doled out to the Clarín, had been largely wasted; yet he liked his job and was proud of any help he could render his own people whenever Fernando's vigilance slackened.
"Can't you bear to look at me?" said Fernando.