Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/53

Mrs Norris was almost regal, stonily, Aztec-regal.

At last they had all made their adieus, and the great doors were shut behind them.

“How did you come out!” Mrs Burlap asked, impertinent.

“In an old Ford taxi—but where is it?” said Kate, peering into the dark. It should have been under the fresno trees opposite, but it wasn’t.

“What a curious thing!” said Owen, and he disappeared into the night.

“Which way do you go?” said Mrs Burlap.

“To the Zécalo,” said Kate.

“We have to take a tram, the opposite way,” said the baby-faced, withered woman from the Middle-West.

The Judge was hobbling along the pavement like a cat on hot bricks, to the corner. Across the road stood a group of natives in big hats and white calico clothes, all a little the worse for the pulque they had drunk. Nearer, on this side of the road, stood another little gang, of workmen in town clothes.

“There you have them,” said the Judge, flourishing his stick with utter vindictiveness. “There’s the two lots of 'em.”

“What two lots?” said Kate, surprised.

“Those peon fellows and those obreros, all drunk, the lot of them. The lot of them!” And in a spasm of pure, frustrated hate, he turned his back on her.

At the same time they saw the lights of a tram-car rushing dragon-like up the dark road, between the high wall and the huge trees.

“Here’s our car!” said the Judge, beginning to scramble excitedly with his stick.

“You go the other way,” flung the baby-faced, faded woman in the three-cornered satin hat, also beginning to fluster as if she were going to swim off the pavement.

The couple clambered avidly into the brightly-lighted car, first class; hobbling up. The natives crowded into the second class.

Away whizzed the tren. The Burlap couple had not even said goodnight! They were terrified lest they might have to know somebody whom they might not want to know; whom it might not pay to know.