“But, child, we—we must think.”
“Señor, no woman ever thinks when love is in her heart and on her lips.”
Her reply seemed to rebuke Adam, for he sensed in it what might be true of life, rather than just of this one little girl, swayed by unknown and uncontrollable forces. She appeared to him then subtly and strongly, as if there was infinitely more than willful love in her. But it did not seem to be the peril of her proffered love that restrained Adam so much as the strange consciousness of the willingness of his spirit to meet hers halfway.
Suddenly Margarita’s mood changed. She became like a cat that had been purring under a soft, agreeable hand and then had been stroked the wrong way.
“Señor think he love me?” she flashed, growing white.
“Yes—I said so—Margarita. Of course I do,” he hastened to assure her.
“Maybe you—a gringo liar!”
Adam might have resented this insulting hint but for his uncertainty of himself, his consequent embarrassment, and his thrilling sense of the nearness of her blazing eyes. What a little devil she looked! This did not antagonize Adam, but it gave him proof of his impudence, of his dreaming carelessness. Margarita might not be a girl to whom he should have made love, but it was too late. Besides, he did not regret that. Only he was upset; he wanted to think.
“If the grande señor trifle—Margarita will cut out his heart!”
This swift speech, inflexible and wonderful with a passion that revealed to Adam the half-savage nature of a woman whose race was alien to his, astounded and horrified him, and yet made his blood tingle wildly.