“Where is she, child? queer, interesting, lovely, spiritual darling that you are, tell me, where is Marriet Motuble?” quickly spoke Catalina’s companion.
“Do you see that large man dressed in steel-grey clothes, who walks like a lawyer? Yes? That person is not a man. Marriet Motuble is the name of the person. She is out for no good. Less than an hour ago she was in his Honor’s mansion.”
“Impossible! How did she enter?” cried Miss Hinckley, as she arose to watch Marriet Motuble, the friend of her other life, now parading nervously before the great Mexican Annex.
“Stranger in this life than in the life she lived in the nineteenth century. She is kind-hearted enough and true in a way. Her strange actions are due to her inability to control her violent temper, on the one hand, and to temper her jealousy, on the other.”
“It is her love for his Honor, and the assurance she has that he cares not for her, that causes her strange actions in this life. She is looking for you. She believes you know where his Honor is, and if she follows you she will find him. Look, Miss Hinckley, look; a dreadful fight is taking place yonder, I want to go. I may be needed,” cried Catalina.
“Quite true, child. We will go. Listen to the reports of the guns. How horrible to send one out of the body in such an uproarious fashion. Why can’t they use the noiseless guns? This is simply barbarism.”
“I want to go,” impatiently cried Catalina. “I must go. Miss Hinckley, come with me. I am impatient to finish my work here and go. I cannot longer endure the family relations into which I was born. It is a living death to me. Look at the crowd! His Honor may be there and in danger. His work has only begun; he must not be retarded in it.”
Helen Hinckley took the strange child, strange to the uninitiated, by the hand, looked intently into her sweet upturned face, which she kissed fondly, and without a word they started briskly toward the street where the fight was taking place.
“Oh, I wish I were there,” impatiently cried Catalina. “If I had wings I would fly.”
“Stop, dear; put your right palm on my left palm and slip your left hand under this strap. That is correct. We cannot fly like birds in the sky, but we can sail along at a slow, steady rate, much faster than we can walk; and if necessary, we can rise above the crowd and escape.”